Artist 138: Zagny S. Ormut-Durbin

A brand new day and a brand new spring feature over here in the land of eternal rains.. Though we are currently in a drought. We have a brilliant young artist for your delectation now with the exciting Zagny S. Ormut-Durbin. Zagny is a Tel Aviv based artist with international roots and a great sharp style. Her work is strong both in flavour and character, the smoldering eyes and charcoal chagrin expressions etching her characters into life and into the realm of fantasy that makes such fertile ground for current artists. Her work is skilled and has a genuine craft and penmanship that elevates her, with both the technique and artistry to give the images she wants to the viewer and put force into her work which gives us reason to take note. She has a way of making dark yet intriguing work that has a great tension to it. The perfect counterpoint to a still hot afternoon, there is a certain icy tone in her work that gives it a real edge. So without to much further ado, it's the wonderful Zagny S.

Who are you:

Zagny S. Ormut-Durbin - a 24-year-old someone resulting from being born in Hong Kong with Canadian parents, jumping between Canada and Australia and lucky enough to visit a bunch of other places along the way, only to currently be living in Tel Aviv.

What do you do: 

I think a bit too much; the rest of the time I spend trying to get illustration jobs which, if I get them, I try adding my own twist. The remainder of my time is spent with some dear ones, which include a rather insane little dog. And if there's time, I even manage spending some time out of my little world or finally drawing something of my own.

How did you start: 

When extraordinarily bored once as a child, I began drawing headless people with funny dresses. Then, discovering a fascination with MAD magazine caricatures, I copied their odd faces in a crappy sketchbook mixed with inanimate objects around the home. Discovering Edward Gorey was perhaps the biggest turning point. Between his works, and an art teacher from high school telling me, basically, "you're doing it wrong! those are illustrations, not art!" I started filling my longer-imposed time filling sketchbook after sketchbook with ink drawings. Then, finding out I could do an imitation of what I had become so obsessed with doing for a degree and job was the ultimate punch.

A Personal statement about you or your work: 

Am not really sure how to talk about me or my work - always been a rather problematic feature of mine. I try doing what seems right and true to me in my work, and have an interesting amount of stress when I don't. Am apparently a tad old-fashioned in many way (not least of all in choice of techniques). I've an ever-present fascination with nature and the man-made, and try to regurgitate the witnessed and felt into some other semblance, through imagery.

Links:
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flickr
portfolio on cargo (under construction)