Members of the Z’otz Collective stand in front of their third story mural at the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery. Their exhibition – entitled Ode to the Inside Out Questions – runs until March 2021. From left are Nahum Flores, Erik Jerezano and Ilyana Martinez. Carl Hnatyshyn/Sarnia This Week
A Toronto-based art collective with strong links to Latin America plan to wow Lambton County audiences at the newly-reopened Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery. Their exhibition showcases a wide variety of colourful, complex and collaborative creations.
The Z’otz Collective – made up of artists Erik Jerezano, Nahum Flores and Ilyana Martinez – launched Ode to the Inside Out Questions as the gallery re-opened its doors to its members Oct. 2 and to the general public on Oct. 3. It was the first time the gallery has allowed visitors inside since March. The exhibition will run until March 2021.
Featuring an enormous and freshly-completed mural on the gallery’s third floor, as well as intricate drawings, surreal ceramic pieces and sculptures, the exhibition will provide attendees with a fairly comprehensive snapshot of the group’s 16 years working together as collaborative artists.
The group’s name ‘Z’otz’ means ‘bat’ in the Mayan language, Jerezano said, and the trio thought it fitted the collective well as bats are both an important mythological figure in Mayan culture.
“The name links us with our Latin American heritage,” said Jerezano, who was born in Mexico and came to Canada in 2001. “We chose Z’otz because it means ‘bat’ in Mayan. Bats live together in caves and form clusters and we are a cluster of artists. We are a community.”
While each of the artists brings a different style and skills to the table, their ability to teach and learn from one other has allowed them to create art that reflects their shared heritage (Flores is originally from Honduras while Martinez is a Mexican-Canadian) while pushing them to places they never could have gone alone, Jerezano said.
“We all come from different paths. I was born in Mexico and I came to Canada and I consider myself a self-taught artist,” he said. “Then I met Nahum, who studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto and at the time Ilyana was doing an exchange semester in Italy. She went to NSCAD University for design and the Ontario College of Art for art.”
He said they started with drawings, and then started to meet weekly.
“We started evolving in our practice, incorporation ceramic and large scale murals.”
When the three work collaboratively to create art, the process – and not the end result – is the most important part of the equation, Martinez said.
“When we work we don’t start out by putting specific meaning into the work, but stories come out of the process. So when we show our art, people can see it and invent their own stories,” she said.
“(We) have quite different styles and the way we started working is that we started with small drawings … and usually we’d put all our materials in the middle of the table and then we’d each grab a piece of paper and we’d work on the piece, then we’d rotate it.”
“We are definitely a process-oriented group, and people walking through the exhibition will definitely see that with all the ceramics and all the drawings,” Jerezano added. “They’re all done under the same concept of collaboration, by talking with each other. It’s like a conversation – it can take you anywhere.”
The beauty of Ode to the Inside Out Questions, Flores said, is that every attendee can take what they like from the exhibition.
“People have to come with an open mind,” he added. “Our work is very ambiguous and everyone can question it and think about it from a different point of view. But they’ll see a lot of variety and a lot of stories that they can interpret from their own perspective.”
While the pandemic slowed down the collective’s creative flow, it didn’t extinguish it, Jerezano said. Having an exhibition in a gallery again with live people walking through is a good feeling, he added.
“Our dynamic changed because of the pandemic,” he said. “Nahum and Ilyana are a family, I have my own family, so we had to work remotely which was challenging. But we adjusted to it as best as we could. We returned to the studio at the end of August to work together and now we’re here.”
”It feels good to be working again,” Martinez said. “As a group we’ve had consistency over the past 16 years. That momentum was halted, it’s quite a challenge to get going again. But here we are.”
Aside from Ode to the Inside Out Questions, the gallery is also showcasing another exhibition as part of its grand re-opening.
Visitors can also come to the gallery to see Group of Seven: Their Visions Revisited 100 Years Later, which runs from Oct. 2 to August 2021. The exhibition features paintings and drawings from the gallery’s permanent collection and showcases early connections between iconic Group of Seven painters and the beginnings of the Sarnia Women’s Conservation Art Association and the Sarnia Art Movement.
The gallery will have limited new hours beginning on Oct. 2 (the gallery will be open on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.) and to allow for proper physical distancing, the gallery will be implementing timed-ticket entry, which can be booked in advance at jnaag.ca.
Room capacities at the gallery have been significantly reduced, masks are required and tours of the gallery are temporarily cancelled.
