Ejay Weiss
Ejay Weiss was a painter who lived and worked in Manhattan. His paintings combine elements of the natural landscape within a rotational restructuring of the picture plane- suggesting an entirely different way of experiencing the 2nd dimension as more a meditative than material surface. By creating a geologic-like matrix of paint that draws upon quantum physics and scientific logic, Weiss portrays an array of life forms that spin to and from the viewer, adding a paradoxical sense of timelessness to physical depth.
In 2008 the artist began a series of seascapes, presenting rocks, shells, and marine life resting on the seabed, as hues of ocean swirl in the space around. For Weiss, the formless fluid substance of paint generates a gravitational momentum across the canvas, before settling and drying into its own geologic field. Seascape With Cockle Shells (2011) combines acrylic paint, beach sand, and pumice gel on canvas and draws the viewer into the submerged, sea-tumbled space of two large-scale shells. A Seascape with Snail Shells (2010-2011) features an array of marine husks fused together within a tidal pull, and sea spray that appears physically palpable. The top of the composition captures a sliver of relatively still ocean, sandwiched below a bright blue sky. The entire surface resonates with energy.
In September 2011, Ejay Weiss exhibited 12 large paintings in a solo show at Saint Peters Church Narthex Gallery at the Citicorp Plaza in Manhattan, titled 9/11 ELEGIES: 2001-2011. The exhibition coincided with the 10th Anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, and Washington, DC, and received worldwide media coverage. The 9/11 National Memorial Museum, under construction at Ground Zero in Manhattan, plans to feature Weiss’s ELEGIES in a permanent installation, after the museum opens in 2013.
Ejay Weiss passed away on June 9th, 2018.