Zaida Oenema, Line Series (Parallels), 2024. Image courtesy of Municipal bonds.
A bowl of cheerfully striped Finnish candies beckons from the front counter at Municipal Bonds Gallery, their blue and white swirls on the wrapper echoing the lines of artist Zaida Oenema's Line Series Diptych hanging nearby. Colored pencil on drawing paper forms fluid blue lines, later hand-cut by scalpel with the precision of a surgeon.
I lean left, then right, several times. The lines shift and dance in a way that feels almost smug, delighting in their illusion. These are works you want to live with, yet no matter how long you look, you will never fully unravel them. Much like that enigmatic person you always longed to date in high school but who remained just out of reach, I fall hard for Zaida Oenema’s work.
Zaida Oenema, Reflections, 2025. Image courtesy of Municipal bonds.
Utilizing soldering irons, paper pulp, and the delicate manipulation of hand-drawn marks, Oenema constructs a world where precision gives way to texture. In another diptych, Reflections, rounded peaks and their mirrored counterparts suggest a mountain range above still water. Step closer, and they resolve into a hand-sawn jigsaw puzzle assembled from the artist’s imagination. Each piece, cut and created individually, joins the others to form a quiet suggestion of peace.
Zaida Oenema, Echo I, 2025. Image courtesy of Municipal Bonds.
In the back gallery, I encounter a diptych composed of four types of Japanese paper: kozo off-white and cream, shoji white, and Awagami Kitakata. Thousands of tiny circles, burnt meticulously with a soldering iron, are spaced densely like hairs on a head. They form curving, sensual lines within strict borders. Reminiscent of wind patterns in tall summer grasses, the work in Oenema’s Echo series seems to hold motion itself within its frame.
Zaida Oenema, Burnings (Variation X), 2025. Image courtesy of Municipal Bonds.
Burnings, Variation X dominates the rear wall. Sixteen framed pieces create a unified grid, an arrangement that now feels emblematic of Oenema’s visual language. In front of it, a white table offers a neatly stacked pile of postcards printed with squares from the grid. Viewers are invited to cut and rearrange them into new patterns, like raking sand in a Zen garden.
The exhibition invites contemplation, yet it does not offer serenity without effort. Peace, Oenema reminds us, is hard-won. These works urge a moment of still reflection, drawing the viewer inward. But there is caution, too. The smallest accident could send the fragile balance into chaos. The frames, in this case, become as vital as the contents they contain.
Zaida Oenema: Reflections is on view at Municipal Bonds through October 25, 2025.
