PAT ZALISKO

Zalisko has wonderful childhood memories of painting intricate Ukrainian eggs—one of her first experiences in the creative world. Many years later, her powerful and evocative abstract work often echoes the bright coloration of pysanky. Born and raised in New York City, she was encouraged by her parents to pursue a practical career, practicing law in the northeast until she moved to Florida in 2004. Zalisko nonetheless remained immersed in NYC’s rich visual and performing arts.

In her new environ, Zalisko fully embraced painting. She broadened her innate knowledge by studying with coaches such as Harold Garde and Steven Aimone, both of whom recognized her talent and commitment to creating art. She regularly studies in masters and residencies programs.

Over the past several years, Zalisko’s work has regularly appeared in exhibitions and private and public collections in the United States and abroad. Among these, two of her paintings were acquired by New York City’s Weill-Cornell Medical College, Orange County (FL) and the Lake Eustis Museum of Art. She has captured major awards and accolades in juried events in and outside Florida, including Best of Show.

Most recently, she was selected for inclusion in the prestigious Florida Biennial at the Museum of Florida Art, and during the same year was included in the exhibition titled Four (The Result of CURATE THIS 2008) at BECA gallery in New Orleans. This unusual exhibition featured four emerging artists selected via on-line votes cast by more than 400 “guest curators” from eleven countries.  Her work is published in a book by that same title.  Representation includes New Orleans’ CoLAB Project/BECA Gallery, Atlanta’s Muse & Co. Fine Art,  Roan & Black – Saugatuck, and Charlotte’s Art Charlotte. She was the Florida Artist of the Month at Orlando Museum of Art’s Museum Shop Gallery in April 2009. Her piece, Sidestepper, was published by the New York Times in June 2009 and subsequently featured in the exhibition, Rise-Fall, commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago. This exhibit traveled to Boston, NYC, Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Zalisko’s art was featured in March 2010 in Across the Universe at the Harris Gallery, Art League of Daytona Beach. Her art was presented in a first-of-its kind exhibition at The Cultural Center of Ponte Vedra Beach between June and July 2011. Her painting was juried into the 2011 and 2012 Annual Exhibitions of the Florida Museum For Women Artists. Her art was showcased in 2011 and again in 2012 in NEO Expressions at Hollingsworth Gallery, Palm Coast. In 2012, her work was featured in Petroleum Paradox, an exhibition of art juried by Eleanor Heartney, contributing editor of Artpress and Art in America.  This exhibition at Denise Bibro Fine Art, NYC, included a catalog by the same title. This exhibition travelled in the Spring of 2013 to the Narrows Art Center in Fall River, MA. Zalisko’s art was included in group exhibitions at NYC’s National Association of Women Artists Gallery and at the Phoenix Gallery, NYC in the Fall of 2013. A catalog was published, based upon latter show, which is entitled, Stories We Tell. Zalisko’s work was selected by the prominent St. Louis University Museum of Art and a juror, renowned artist Beverly Buchanan, for Contemporary Artists XVI from August-October 2012; and in a catalog published by the Museum for that exhibition. Zalisko’s work was shown in a solo exhibition at the Lake Eustis Museum of Art in 2012. In 2013, her art was featured in a solo exhibition, Material Witness, at University of South Carolina’s gallery at Lancaster; and two group exhibitions at the LeMoyne Center for the Visual Arts in Tallahassee juried by acclaimed artist Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, and at Chicago’s Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, in Artists Interpret Genocide. Again, a catalog of that exhibition was published and features her work.

Zalisko was chosen by the Director and Curator of the Armory Arts Center for its Watch for Excellence Program, under which ten artists were mentored and followed in their studios for two years to produce a new body of work for exhibition. Zalisko’s art is published in Best of Worldwide Artists – Volume I, Mixed Media (2010); and in Art Galleries and Artists of the South, volume 8, no. 2 (2011).