Colorado-based artist Zoa Ace creates oil-on-canvas paintings, watercolors, and collage work. She employs a mix of pop culture, animals, and nostalgic imagery in her scenes, often carnival-like or theatrical. As a child growing up in Illinois, Ace loved to draw, and her favorite subject in school was Art. In the 1970s, Ace discovered Chicago’s Hairy Who artists represented by the Phyllis Kind Gallery. She viewed the recently uncovered murals of Henry Darger and other Outsider Artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art. These works influenced and inspired her, as did the bold gestures and imagery of the German Expressionists she observed at the Art Institute of Chicago. Ace studied Art History in college, then later moved to Colorado with her artist husband. They began their art careers showing work simultaneously in Chicago & Denver before branching out to other parts of the country. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the Denver Art Museum, the Vance Kirkland Museum, and Denver’s Children’s Hospital. It has been displayed in the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C, and the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, Austria.Her work can be playful and thought-provoking. She finds making her living as a fine artist both satisfying and unpredictable. Ace endeavors to produce work that is engaging for herself and others.