Aaron Zalonis: GOD, LUCIFER AND THEIR NEIGHBOR: A Situation Comedy

Aaron Zalonis

GOD, LUCIFER AND THEIR NEIGHBOR: A Situation Comedy

January 4 – February 2, 2019

“For the past couple of years, I have been thinking about Heaven, Hell and the belief that we are characters in a simulation of reality (as hypothesized by Nick Bostrom, Elon Musk and Neil deGrasse Tyson). Do we unknowingly exist both as characters in our familiar world of disease, boredom, waiting at the DMV, sitting in a dentist’s office, arguing about politics, ordering pickle & pimento loaf at the deli, crushing disappointment and occasional happiness while simultaneously existing as super-evolved versions of ourselves piloting our characters? Are we the nerve cells for a universe stranger than we can imagine? My paintings in this exhibition examine this and other worlds.

I write and paint equally with my left and right hands as a way of getting beyond my pre-programmed thought patterns. My earliest memories are of watching the Dadaist antics of Monty Python and Benny Hill late at night on PBS. At the time, these experiences felt like witnessing glitches in the Matrix or transmissions from an alien civilization. To me, humor is at it’s best when it’s frenzied, anomalous weirdness that makes you wake up laughing in the middle of the night.”

— Aaron Zalonis

Aaron Zalonis was born in Rochester, New York. He received a BA in Studio Art at Kent State University. Aaron lives in Raleigh, NC with his partner, Tajhia and works in Durham, NC at The Nasher Museum of Art.