Figuratively Speaking is an exhibition by Jody Zellen featuring pieces from an ongoing body of work: All too Human. On view are small monitors each showing a different set of short animations, lenticular images, one-inch HolaCubes displaying animated GIFs, and an interactive sculpture. Figuratively Speaking refers to the aim to go beyond literal meaning focusing on creative and symbolic expression.

In this exhibition, Zellen explores the animated movements of silhouetted figures — a combination of simple shapes — a circle, an oval and three rectangles. The silhouettes amble within the frame, changing colors, encountering other figures, moving through cityscapes, falling through holes, and morphing into multiple iterations, only to disappear and begin all over again, caught in an infinite loop. Zellen’s anonymous figures enact scenarios that are metaphors for lived experiences and convey emotions that sign for us all.

__________________

Jody Zellen is a Los Angeles based artist who works in many media simultaneously. She makes animations, interactive installations, app art, net art, drawings, paintings, photographs, public art, and artists’ books. She constantly thinks about ways to use new technologies and to integrate interactivity into her artworks. Zellen received a BA from Wesleyan University (1983), a MFA from CalArts (1989) and a MPS from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (2009). Zellen was the recipient of a 2023 California Arts Council Established Artist Fellowship. She received project fellowships from the City of Santa Monica in 2021, 2016 and 2011, as well as a California Community Foundation Mid Career Fellowship (2012); a Center for Cultural Innovation Artistic Innovation Grant (2011); and a 2004 COLA (City of Los Angeles) Fellowship.

Her installations have been exhibited at the Boston Cyberarts Gallery (2026); Nan Rae Gallery, Woodbury University (2022); The Los Angeles International Airport (2019 and 2017); Long Beach City College Art Gallery (2017); and at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Charleston, SC (2014). Her work has been included in more than 500 group exhibitions and festivals since the late 1980s and is in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of Art, The Getty Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The San Francisco Museum of Art, The Laguna Art Museum, and The Orange County Museum of Art, as well as in numerous private

collections.