Peter Blum Gallery is pleased to present Pink Dust, an exhibition of new works by Berkeley and Reykjavík -based artist, John Zurier. This marks the artist’s eighth solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition is on view from September 2 with an artist reception on September 25 from 6–8pm, and will run through November 1, 2025, at 176 Grand Street, New York, NY.
John Zurier’s exhibition Pink Dust features a body of work created over the past two years predominantly in Iceland. This group of smaller paintings and one large painting emerged from his time at a farmhouse at the base of a mountain with views of fields, the sea, and a glacier in the distance, deeply influencing his artistic practice. The works revisit and expand upon the abstract formal language Zurier developed after his initial visit to Iceland in 2002.
The exhibition title and the largest painting’s title, A History of Pink Dust, are taken from Ron Padgett’s book of poems entitled, Pink Dust. They symbolize the tangible residue of the creative process—the erasures, revisions, and diligent effort in both poetry and painting. It speaks to accumulation and condensation, highlighting the complexity and time required to achieve simplicity.
Many of these paintings were created at a farm known for its persistent winds. Zurier embraces this constant presence, viewing it as a pervasive form of breathing that moves through everything. He aims to cultivate stillness within this dynamic environment, striving for what he calls a silent, moving stillness that moves through the paintings themselves. Over the last two years, his focus has been on achieving greater density in the paintings, imbuing the atmosphere with more weight and making the light feel more substantial.
Zurier’s artistic exploration has led him deeper into the monochrome, which he perceives as a realm of infinite possibility. As color narrows—grays that hold traces of blue or green, whites that carry the memory of yellow— every delicate shift is amplified, encouraging a different mode of perception. Working with colors in lower registers and contrasts demands heightened attention. The paintings encourage viewers to slow down and engage with them over time, resisting quick interpretations and asserting their own temporal rhythms.
While some paintings possess the fluid immediacy of open skies, many surfaces are more distressed and worked. Zurier employs techniques of scraping, wiping, building up, and tearing down, allowing the paint to accumulate the history of these actions. This creates a quality akin to weathering, mirroring how the Icelandic landscape bears the marks of time. Each surface functions as a field that can be simultaneously disrupted and continued, with marks creating their own logic and rhythm—what Zurier likens to the painting’s breathing.
What Zurier seeks is atmosphere as material itself. The unique, quiet diffusion of Iceland’s air inspires him to have the paintings contain this quality. The slow light in Iceland fosters patience, building gradually and shifting imperceptibly with sudden shifts. Working in this light, Zurier has learned to trust the process over deliberate decisions, with paintings emerging from gradual layering.
These recent paintings demand more time to complete due to their layered complexity, requiring periods of dormancy between sessions, and thus holding a temporal density that reflects the desired atmospheric density within the work. Much like air holds moisture or light slows through water, these paintings embody a greater accumulation of time.
This working method has transformed Zurier’s perception. His eye has adapted to subtlety, discerning micro-variations within apparent sameness. Stillness, for Zurier, is not the absence of movement, but movement so concentrated it becomes its own form of rest. In these paintings, he strives to make this paradox visible—surfaces that vibrate with accumulated energy, yet offer profound quiet to those who spend time with them.
© Text and Photo Courtesy of Peter Blum Gallery
