The ‘mysterious bridge’ that Delacroix describes is not one that need be traversed with hesitancy. In the best of cases, the bridge built by the artist should be approached with deliberate curiosity, and if successfully erected, it can be crossed an unending number of times.
Mysterious may not be an obvious descriptor one would use in characterizing Stephen Zaima’s works upon first glance.  It would run contrary to the emphatic nature of his iconography, his palette, and often, the scale of the work.  However, when trying to deconstruct a narrative in each painting, photograph, collage or installation, it’s never quite as there-for-the-taking as might be initially assumed.
The spare components that comprise the monumental L’evitare, 2000 (the most seemingly narrative in the exhibition), suggest an easy interpretation, but baked into the work are numerous subtle, right-turn decisions made along the way – the profound use of negative space; the textural treatment of the underbrush obscured by the main event; the object-ness created by the hanging mechanism – and it is these decisions laid bare that allow for infinite pleasurable attempts at deconstructing the painting for any active viewer.
As seen in the works in this exhibition, Zaima’s symbols and iconography recur throughout his oeuvre at varying intervals and across several media. Immediate examples seen in A Real Allegory, 1990, Corona del Spina, 1997, and Anvil,1998, include the harpsichord, the airplane, the anvil, the dividing line, varying spiral forms, and the crown of thorns. The relationships between these icons and the manner in which they’re created involve no accidents. Personal and art historical anecdotes intertwine, previously visible imagery is obscured, and compositions oscillate between the Rorschachian and the linear.
Stephen Zaima does not spoon-feed narratives, nor does he fall into the contemporary trap of thoughtlessly amalgamating imagery into some ambiguous moat. In his work he captivates, he challenges, he provokes contemplation, and by so doing we fortunately engaged enjoy every ramble over the bridge.

Eric Gleason, May 2019