Throughout our anniversary year, Zenith will feature artists who have been with us for decades or who are new to the Zenith family. These artists reflect the Zenith culture of ingenuity through high-quality work and strong visions that are meaningful, joyful and extremely well executed. Basically, they stand the test of time while reflecting our current culture.

Bulsby Duncan is our first-place winner from last year’s RESIST exhibit! Duncan’s work is inherently filled with emotional energy, from his abstract pieces to his graffiti style paintings. He addresses social issues such as police brutality with symbols referring to Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin, mass incarceration, and gun violence with paying homage to one of the greatest graffiti painters, Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Christopher Malone moved from Boston to Washington in 1992 to work at the National Zoo where he cared for the giant pandas Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling. Talent and a life-long fascination that started with doll-making soon led Malone into the art world, and since then he has focused on his soft-sculptured creatures, which are in private collections and have been featured in galleries in New York, New Orleans, Baltimore and in Washington DC. Malone debuted with Zenith Gallery in 2008 and continues to dazzle and delight us. A self-taught artist, Malone says of his work, “I believe my creations come from my unknown African past. When my ancestors came to this country chained in the belly of ships as cargo, they were taken away from their language, families, way of life; and this included their Gods. When I am creating a doll, I'll have the exotic fabric, beads and feathers on a table in front of me, and I let the Universe (spirit) guide me in what to do with it. Maybe my guidance in creativity is coming from my unknown ancestors... perhaps telling me stories that I have never heard and showing mask and painted faces that I have never seen?”

Kristine Mays uses hundreds of pieces of wire tocreate intricate sculptures that capture the human form to reflect upon what is inward. “I create the outer shell, the exterior of a human being, but provoke you to see what's within. Memories and the way we have loved one another far outweigh our status or possessions -- and yet sometimes a simple dress or a body in motion may trigger a memory from the past, allowing us to visit that which has imprinted our lives."

Khalid Thompson’s new work consists of colorful bold lines forming basic shapes, while Thompson’s earlier work entails Pollack like abstract expressionism, but with brighter and more striking colors. Having a broad creative style, Thompson uses various techniques to apply the paint as well as performing live paintings in collaboration with musicians. “I see a relationship between sound and color, I mean, there’s an obvious relationship. I think that what I attempt to do when I’m performing live is to kind of get visual jazz. Something that has a musicality of feel that is encoded on the canvas. That you can feel the spontaneity, that it was done very in the moment so it’s almost like a recording of the experience. So, it was just about tapping into that connection between music and painting.”

Zenith Gallery has been a pillar in the D.C. art community since its inception. We attribute our success to our ability to transform with the ever-changing times. We do this by combining our longstanding commitment to inspired, unique artworks with our personalized, high quality customer service. This commitment to celebrating the creative spirit of our artists is the core value at the heart of Zenith Gallery. As Owner and celebrated artist in her own right, Goldberg is fond of saying, “With billions of people on the planet, for someone to come up with an original idea and execute it in an original way, is what has kept me in business all these years.”