An Introverts View, review of the Zephyr Gallery

An Introverts View

The Zephyr Gallery, located in downtown Louisville, is a small space with creaky wooden floors and a narrow wooden staircase. You can tell it was built to be a house, but the front wall is all windows now. This exhibition, The Prolonged Gaze,

includes three artists from the local area. All three are described as painters by the gallery pamphlet, which has information about each of their backgrounds. I’m pleased that the artists are all from the Kentuckiana area.

The first floor seems to be all large paintings. They’re bright and chiefly abstract, with only glimpses of reality. At first they each compete for my attention; seem loud and disruptive in the space. Some of the largest work is unframed and the paint pushes on my eyes from where it lays on the wall. The work that was framed caught the light from the front windows. I couldn’t get away from my reflection; I found myself distracting. I walked upstairs, I read the pamphlet. Vian Sora, the painter downstairs, was from Iraq, living in Louisville and self-taught, I think again about the colors and the shapes.  


Upstairs I’m halted by Tiffany Calvert’s work. It bears a strong resemblance to the still life paintings I’ve seen in museums. Her technique mixes digital imagery with traditional painting mediums in a way that disorients. The layered effect creates spaces that look like a glitch within the picture plane. This contrast offers depth for your eyes and mind to wander. Standing in front of Untitled #287, an enveloping larger than life painting, I felt the same as the first time I wore a pair of 3D glasses in the theater.

Tiffany Calvert, Untitled #287, detail, 2017, oil on digital print on canvas, 48″ x 60″

Shapes jumped off of the wall toward me and I wished for a chair so I could enjoy the vertigo. I backed away slowly and the visual play continued to shower my eyes. I vaguely recognize this painting as the same one on the cover of the pamphlet. But looking down at it again I can’t believe the two things are the same. I walked around the floors, looked up at the ceiling, bleaching my eyes.


Exhaling the Fragrance by Nhat Tran is an enticing piece of work. Originally from Vietnam, the artist uses a time consuming and labor intensive Japanese technique called Urushi lacquer. The fine detail achieved is alluring in its minuteness.

Nhat Tran, EXHALING THE FRAGRANCE, 2016, Urushi Japanese natural lacquer on wood. 24” x 30” x 4.3”

Her work has a rich natural texture combined with a shine and color treatment distinct from anything the natural world might produce. The light playing in the crevices from across the room draws me to where it’s displayed. Tran’s other work also displays the Urushi technique, combined with natural materials it glows.

Tran is the only artist in the gallery from Indiana. She is also the only one of the three women whose work on display is ‘three dimensional’ The do not touch sign glares at me, from the wall, the pedestals. I didn’t need to touch to be inspired but the sign always makes me want to. I greatly enjoyed the effects of the other artists’ work, but the placement of Nhat Tran’s work in the context of more 2D paintings brought her work to me in a special light. Made of natural material they are meant to change over time, and I would like to visit them again someday.