Zoey Trapani
Born in Johannesburg, 1998, Trapani is interested in exploring her ‘art heritage’; her parents
met while studying Fine Arts at Wits University and both continued their art careers full time
while raising her together, even though divorced. Growing up in the art world, Zoey had the
privilege of meeting many South African artists who were all eccentric in their own ways and
this enchanted her as a child.
Her father, Sandro/Alex Trapani, now a full-time sculptor, was an art teacher at various
high schools and colleges for 25 years and her late mother, Antoinette Murdoch, was head
curator of JAG from 2009 to 2016, she would often bring Zoey to the gallery while working.
Roaming the halls of such a large and ancient gallery as a young girl had a strong influence
on Trapani and she regards it as a transcendent experience which steered her towards
immersing herself in the arts as her parents did.
“I vividly remember spending ages staring at Penny Siopis’s Melancholia, hanging in the
lower level of JAG, it had me transfixed and I remember feeling that I was at home in this
building, surrounded by art. I always enjoyed accompanying my parents to exhibition
openings and continue to feel a sense of belonging in any art gallery.”
She matriculated in 2016 with a distinction in Visual Arts.
Trapani began selling her arts and crafts at market stalls, concentrating on the functionality
of her sculptures in order to expand her target audience, this included embellished vases
and dolls which were popular but very peculiar.
Currently, she is Operations Manager at Lizamore Gallery and Associates and is being
mentored by Teresa Lizamore, a curator who also once exhibited both Zoey’s parents
artworks 20 years prior.
As well as gaining valuable PR and administrative skills (assisting with artist and client
relations), this work at the gallery is encouraging her to create more art for art’s sake and
she is exploring her sculpting journey with a more conceptual approach to her creations.
Through Lizamore she has assisted in curating the City Hall Exhibition at the SU Toyota
Woordfees in Stellenbosch in 2023 as well as assisting with the valuation of SA Taxi’s
extensive art collection.
Her debut exhibition was ‘Season’s Greetings’, a group exhibition curated by Lizamore
Gallery at the end of 2023 and from this first taste of being recognised as a Fine Artist,
Trapani plans on expanding into the market at full speed, continuing her parents legacy in
the art world and doing what she was born to do.
“I aim to make art that sparks joy and curiousity, but occasionally invokes an uneasy feeling,
because beauty itself is not always aesthetically pretty"
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