Zinovy Shersher 's creative world is not only the artistic and experimental world of his paintings. Rather, it is first and foremost a complex, multilevel search for an individual style, a personal reflection of those contradictions which both comprise and move the his perception of time, human character, feelings, and personal and social fate.

            And if it is true that style makes the man, then Shersher is characterized by a dynamic involving the subtlest movements of soul, mood, and human perceptions and the constantly changing world of humans and their relations.

            His artistic method is not purely "artistic" but, rather, a "laboratory" method, where experimentation with the artistic material involves a synthesis, a search for that single "moment  of truth" which not only will freeze and fix a subject on the canvas but will provide an opportunity to perceive new facets of the  subject, to uncover not the overall result, but the underlying half-tones, moods, and feelings which move each of us but acquire a new artistic resonance and a deeply intimate and personal meaning in Shersher's paintings.

            Each of Shersher's work is experimental in it's own way. In the works of the Russian and New York periods, that experimentation was with color, line, composition, and form and had to some degree an intuitive character. The work of recent years represent the results of all the trials and errors, successes and failures, and create a unique, capacious, and dynamic form, a multilevel work, filled with interplay between space and color. Most importantly, they display a matured, personal esthetic and world view.

            Moreover, Shersher's art has developed along a strictly logical developmental and evolutionary line, from the Russian period, from 1970-80, to the New York period, from 1981 to 1986,  and Los Angeles period, from that time to the present. The Russian period represents a mastering of the method of color and compositional expression, in which Shersher tries out different styles and techniques, from watercolor to linocut, from a portrait of an old farm woman to the halftone of a crystal vase with asters, shining with a mixture of hope and sadness. The works of the Russian period formed a solid base upon which to build a repertoire of more complex techniques and devices.

            During the New York period Shersher's works began to convey the artist's own personal philosophy. It is important to recall that painting is not Shersher's only artistic expression of the world through himself and himself through the world. He is a professional musician, songwriter and singer, and a poet. Each of those gifts has predominated at different stages of his career, but only on arrival in New York did he have the opportunity to link his various gifts into a single organic synthesis and express that new unity on canvas.

             One of his very interesting pictures, his painting "Rhythm," serves as an example. The painting is an attempt to find the colors of sound and to make line and color ring out loud. It is one of those very few artistic experiments in which canvas has taken on the complex rhythmic harmonies of music, and sharp- accented color has set space to a jazz-like rhythm, creating an improvisation-like transition from one geometric form to another, its natural development and continuation.

            It is interesting to see how Shersher has been influenced by various schools and styles in the works of the New York period. Although his works never were "imitative, " the influence of various traditions-impressionism, cubism, or of various individual artists--Picasso, Kandinsky, or Bracques, was clearly strong at the beginning of New York period. By its and, the various traditions had been synthesized into a new and independent individual style.

            Shersher came to New York in 1980 as an emigrant from the Soviet Union. By 1986, when he moved to Los Angeles , he moved there as an American artist.

            Looking at the more than three hundred pictures of his Los Angeles period to date, one realizes that Shersher has never abandoned his basic human and esthetic positions, but that he has returned to his basic topics, but with a new mastery of artistic forms and devices, and with increasingly developed human qualities.

            The result of the Los Angeles period has been the discovery of a hidden essence, an essence expressible only in images, of a "golden cross-section" in the artistic comprehension of humans, time, and the world.

            In addition to the qualitative achievement the Los Angeles period in Shersher's art represents, there is a quantitative result, an indication of Shersher's increased recognition and artistic status. In the last two years more than a hundred articles and notes devoted to his work have appeared in the pages of the periodical press and in television and radio reviews, among them  the L.A. Times, the Daily News, the. Hollywood Reporter, on the local stations, on C.N.N., NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, and on the Entertainment Tonight show.

            Several closely interrelated and interacting components mark Shersher's work. The first is his basic theme, the second is the fundamental direction of his work, in which several separate cycles of paintings can be seen. His basic theme is of a Jazz-like construction and understanding, in which each musician's improvisations at once harmonize and are in dissonance. The theme's central image is of the singer, seeking and overcoming resisting sound and space, and seeking and overcoming temporal and social barriers. The singer's voice is now hidden under other sounds, now broken by a rock and roll rhythm, now stands out in its own individuality, now mixed in with a choir, now powerlessly contends with the piano's keys, and now soars, free and pure, over the world of the mundane.

            Shersher's "The Muse" is one of the programmatic works on that Theme. Laconic and severe in its expressive devices, the painting manages to express both a deep philosophic idea and a highly poetic artistry. The painting's composition is so original and organic that it is hard to separate the individual technical devices and details comprising it. Its major lines are clear-cut, almost graphic, but manage to form an amazing combination of music and colors. But the picture's "riddle" consists exactly of the fact that the area and flow of the drawing, cleft by the diagonally inverted bow, disintegrates into separate sounds, broken forms, and sharp, almost wounding segments, giving the muse an elevated and tragic image, intensified and dramatized by the contrast between the work's gentle, almost pastel tones and the harsh black background.

            Despite a surface similarity, Shersher's "The Mask" works differently. Here the contrast is between a rounded, completed form in the lower diagonal of the painting, a roll of paper, an inkwell, and a guitar, symbolizing art and its attributes, and the upper diagonal, with the singer's sharply contoured face, black hole of a mouth, razor-sharp cheek bones, raised to the dramatic pathos of an ancient Greek mask, denying him the possibility of singing his song.

            In "Rock and Roll" songs break against a wall, against a Barred wall of musical instruments. Everything in the picture-the dynamic of pulsing color/sounds, the sharp, traced broken forms of the musicians' naked bodies, and the counterpoint of the almost classic folds of the pink and lyrical tones of the singer's dress represents the breakout from the confines of the crowded notes into creative freedom.

            I would particularly direct your attention to Shersher's painting "Harmony," which I consider one of his most masterful. The effect is of a water-color, filled with light and air. The painting's warm lilac, pink, and light blue tones create weightlessness. The painting's two images- the girl with her violin, and the boy who is listening to her play-are separated by the line of the bow, but despite that formal separation, their attraction to each other is palpable.

            There are now enough portraits by Shersher to form a separate one-man show. Taken as a whole they reveal diverse aspects of an era, whether in John Lennon's or Vysotsky's tragic facial fractures, or in the sharp dynamic of Louis Armstrong's portrait, whether in the dignity and self-respect of a woman, magnified by the fascination of the actress in the portrait of Cher, in the tragic inspiration of the portrait of Stevie Wonder, or in the contrast of the cinematographic image of Silvester Stallone.

            His portrait cycle is an organic extension of his other cycles. For example, his "Jewish" cycle includes pictures which are united by the tension between lyrical light and melancholy.

            "Yom Kippur" is a mixed-media work which presents an unparalleled bright image of a Rebbe on a Jewish Holiday. His face is enlightened by three candles, and the brightness and light give him a double measure of wisdom and quiet joy in comprehending his truth.

            The key to understanding Shersher’s "Song by Song" cycle is in the line from the immortal Book of Love- "I find my soul in you."  The paintings are not amenable to a conscious, rational, approach. The viewer must be able to feel the personal moments, the unrevealed movements of the soul which, though present in all, is hidden under layers of troubles and anxiety.

            One of the best works of the cycle, "Only You and I" is filled with both sadness and the charm of love. Time has stopped for two beautiful young figures, a boy and a girl, and nothing material can describe their feelings. Shersher has caught both the chastity and the eroticism of the merging of the lives of the two lovers. Faithfulness to his own style marks Shersher's "Social" cycle. In that cycle his lyricism becomes much more concrete, but it does not deprive the paintings of the tension and dynamic which is characteristic of Shersher's style.

            One of Shersher’s most recent creations, " Big City ," is a clear visual confirmation of his attention to the problem of the individual in society. Despite the enormity and sharp angels of the skyscraper, in a small crack below we see the face of a girl, filled with an inner beauty, self-respect, and dignity, in contrast to the loss of individuality implied by the city background.

...         Shersher also donated some of his work to be sold at silent auctions in which all proceeds went to the Jeffrey Foundation for Handicapped Children, "Big Sister", American Breast Cancer Society, etc. In my opinion, however, the most striking example of Shersher's social concern and temperament is one of Los Angeles 's  most monumental wall-paintings, the mural he painted in Aliso Pico in 1991. Shersher donated his talent and time to the Aliso-Pico Mural Project in Boyle Height, California . Entitled "We Have A Future", the 2,000 square foot mural depicts the Aliso-Pico community from it's historical and cultural roots to it's future.

            In1990 Zinovy Shersher was accepted to membership in the American Artist's Association, and his name has been included in the Encyclopedia of American Art. Soon the people of New York will once again be able to see Shersher's works at the American Art Association's Exhibition in New Jersey and ArtExpo in .

            One of his exhibition at the Window Gallery in Beverly Hills, took place during the art world's most difficult period in 1994. Despite the poor economy, hundreds of Los Angeles' collectors attended, and instead of the two weeks the exhibit was scheduled to run, the exhibit was extended to almost two months, a very unusual phenomenon for the Beverly Hills art world.

            His works are currently presented in galleries across the United States, Russia, Europe, Canada, and Australia.  Also they can be seen in The Case Museum in New Jersey, Hollywood Entertainment Museum and a number of galleries.