DIRECTOR’S CUT

Iza Thomas

Curated by Gaby Mizes

April 23rd - May 17th, 2025

Movie directors’ artistic visions initiate and effect conversations about mortality and pain as well as rebirth, romance and joy in the human condition. I have taken those visions and philosophies of six directors that I adore: Kszysztof Kieslowski, Jane Campion, Akira Kurosawa, Wes Anderson, Agnieszka Holland, and Stanley Kubrick and put them on canvas. My goal was to distill the effect my favorite movies of these directors had on me.

The 1993 movie “The Piano” is my favorite Jane Campion movie. It speaks to me because it is about grit and romance from the point of view of a woman and because music is a central part of it wholly outside of the interaction with the world of men. The motionless seagull hanging in midair and exotic New Zealand landscape both fit into my magical realism point of view. 

Wes Anderson is a wonderfully quirky director with a complete self-contained universe of ideas that are only his. This painting amalgamates six of his movies with particular scenes that highlight this Andersonian peculiarity and uniqueness that I love.

Akira Kurosawa is known mainly here in the US for his Samurai movies starring Toshiro Mifune but this painting focuses on the most famous of his domestic movies called Ikiru (To Live). The movie is about the realization of the brevity of life and the regrets that come with that realization. But it is also about looking back at things that were accomplished and ideas that were worth fighting for. The swing in the playground the man swings in without the saving laughter and joy of children is the haunting image that I wanted to focus on.

Krzysztof Kieślowski was a brilliant Polish film director. His Dekalog series had a profound influence on me when I was growing up in Poland since he captured the grayness and banality that was a part of life under communism and the stirring humanity that nevertheless existed under it. It also had an element of magical realism with the recurring character being (as I imagined) an angel of death.

Stanley Kubrick is well known to everybody, of course. I have watched “2001 Space Odyssey” many times and this is how I often imagine his own personal room would possibly look like with quoted elements from this movie. He was an obsessive director, and that quality of his art is an important factor for me as well.

Agnieszka Holland is a very talented Polish director and this painting is trying to capture the essence of her translation of the classic children's book called “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I wanted to capture a sense of initial menace that gives way to happiness and joy. And of course, have birds in it.

This whimsical picture is my depiction of the Oscars Academy Awards. Interesting fact: out of the six directors represented in my paintings, Jane Campion is the only one who won for the Best Director. I find it quite ironic since they are all so amazing!