Orsola Zane reflects on states of psychological tension through oil painting and ceramic sculpture. Her imagery conveys a lingering unease, featuring murky tones, vacant gazes, sharp objects, and uncanny creatures that disturb precisely because they inhabit familiar, domestic spaces. Exploring themes of isolation, anxiety, loss of identity, and emotional paralysis, Zane captures the suspended moment before rupture—the instant before a violent or self-destructive act. Her practice avoids resolution, instead preserving the quiet terror of anticipation. Drawing on diverse references, including Catholic iconography, family photographs, rave culture, and children’s television, her figures are stripped of individuality and remain suspended between sacred and profane, threatening and threatened. They occupy a liminal space where meaning feels fragile and unstable. Material choices reinforce these emotional and conceptual tensions: glossy, artificial finishes reflect fictionalized projections of the self, while matte, earthy surfaces emerge in rawer, more intrusive moments. Across her work, Zane resists therapeutic clarity, focusing instead on the inner friction between the urge to harm and the desire to care, between the need to be seen and the fear of exposure. ...
