John Zurier

1 MAY until 27 JUN 2026
Opening – 1 MAY 2026, 6-9 pm

In his tenth solo exhibition with Galerie Nordenhake, John Zurier continues his sustained exploration of the cultural idea of nature through abstraction with a group of new paintings. Drawing on the inherent ambiguity of this approach, his often monochromatic canvases unfold as dreamlike visions of landscapes and stillness, summoning the qualities and effects of the natural world through mark-making and materiality alone.

Through subtle variation and formal restraint, Zurier achieves an atmosphere of ethereal clarity. His work demands a heightened sensual attentiveness that extends beyond the purely visual. Becoming poetic gateways, they invite a return to fleeting moments and a contemplation of how perception, memory, and emotion intertwine. 

John Zurier was born in 1956 in Santa Monica, USA and lives and works in Berkeley CA, USA and Reykjavik, Iceland. 

A solo exhibition of recent paintings, “Far Again,” was presented at Moderna Museet Malmö in 2021. Selected museum exhibitions include Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH (upcoming), High Museum, Atlanta (2025), The National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik (2023), Stavanger Art Museum (both 2023), UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2022, 2018 and 2014); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2017); New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe (2016); Colby Museum of Art, Waterville (2015). He participated in 30th São Paulo Biennial (2012); California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art (2010); 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008); a show at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, England (2003); and the Whitney Biennial, New York (2002).  

In 2010 he was awarded the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. His work can be found in numerous public collections including the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, and others. A catalogue surveying his work from 1981 to 2014 with an essay by Robert Storr was published in 2015.