Robert Zurer was born in New York City, he grew up in Greenwich Village, and he has lived and worked in the city all his life. He is a self taught artist who has been drawing and painting since he was a child. Artists that he loves are Gorky, Bacon, Neel, Lassnig, Balthus, Ensor, De Kooning, Hopper, Turner, Bosch, Grosz, Dix, Feininger, Millet, Church, Kahlo, Benton, Dove, Kandinsky, Burchfield, Carrington, Howson, and many others.  View more of his work at robertzurer.com.

Zurer says, “There is a delectable ‘unknown’ hidden everywhere, behind everything. If I listen, it calls, and if I call, it listens. I want to stick my mind and heart and fingers into it and play hard. I start my work using random lines. I then pay close attention and wait. The problem is how to make it ‘work’. I don’t know quite what makes something work or not work. But I do know that things that work are whole, powerful and true. They have an immediate and lasting effect.That is what I am trying to learn to do by doing.”

A crop of this painting is located on this issue’s reviews page.