Both Bob Trotman and Jody Zellen explore the human condition in very different ways. Zellen presents humans in her work as abstracted, nameless ciphers navigating a complex and often violent world. Through her use of one full year of the New York Times “World News” website, Zellen presents us to ourselves through the media, mediated in a variety of ways. Trotman’s approach is much more direct and less abstracted, but his sculptural works address the corporate world with all of its discontents. His larger than life human figures are suffused with dread, melancholy, or desperation, yet they are cloaked in the uniform of the powerful. Through both artists’ works, we see the de-civilizing effects of greed, power, and privilege.

Bob Trotman

Bob Trotman was born in 1947 in Winston-Salem, NC, received a B.A. in philosophy from Washington and Lee University, and for 40 years has maintained a studio in western North Carolina. He has received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and four fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council. His work is in the permanent collections of The Renwick Gallery (Smithsonian Instittuion), The Columbia Museum of Art, The North Carolina Museum of Art, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The Art Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design, The Mint Museum of Art, The Weatherspoon Art Museum and The Museum of Art and Design in New York, among others.

To learn more about Bob Trotman, please visit www.bobtrotman.com