Artist’s urban landscapes to be featured at Gourgaud Gallery
By: Jessica Beym
Bumper to bumper traffic, crowded parking lots, and miles of high-tension wires along the N.J. Turnpike may seem like nuisances and eyesores to the average American city dweller and suburbanite.
But to Zenna Broomer, a native of England, the urban landscapes are a source of her inspiration.
At the Gourgaud Gallery in Town Hall all May, Ms. Broomer, a former Cranbury resident who now lives in Pennington, will be showcasing more than 30 years of realistic and abstract oil paintings inspired by her everyday surroundings.
"The Suburbs to the Metropolis" will be celebrated tonight (Friday) with an artist’s reception at 6 p.m.
Growing up in Wolverhampton England, Ms. Broomer, 60, wasn’t too far from the industrial epicenter of her native country, she said.
"I was used to the city life," Ms. Broomer said Tuesday. "I started painting at a very young age and I came from a family of creators. I think that was very encouraging."
Even though they didn’t use paintbrushes and canvas, Ms. Broomer said she still thought of her family of engineers as artists. Learning about physical structure, how things work, and the industrial side of life is what Ms. Broomer believes led her interest in urban scenery.
The majority of her recent work, which is on display in the Gourgaud Gallery, captures her creative and often abstract take on common, gritty scenes. One painting uses plaster and paper to give texture to an aerial view of a parking lot. Another depicts the white stripes on black pavement of a city crosswalk lacing through an intersection that’s active with pedestrians.
In another, the twisted turns of an interstate highway are dark and dreary save for a glistening beacon, the golden McDonald’s arches off on the horizon.
In her work, Ms. Broomer said, it’s important not to get too absorbed in the reality of what is there and to use memory and imagination to find the true beauty.
Quickly sketching a few lines of the scene is all Ms. Broomer said she does before sitting down at home to recreate the image on canvas.
"The rest is just visual," she said. "If you become too absorbed, then it becomes mechanical."
After graduating from the School of Art and Design at Wolverhampton University, located in the British Midlands, Ms. Broomer immigrated to the United States in the late 1960s and bought a "small cottage" with her husband on North Main Street in Cranbury.
"After so much academics, you tend to favor realism," she about some of her earlier paintings, scenes from Cranbury’s Main Street in 1969.
The older paintings, much different than the industrial abstract scenes, show the detailed lines of the street and a gas pump clearly marking the posted price of just 34 cents per gallon. In another, she painted a scene of the edge of Brainerd Lake and the long, dark branches of the trees that lined Main Street.
While she tends to the more abstract interpretations these days, Ms. Broomer said every now and then she jumps between the interpretive and the realistic art forms.
Many of her newer abstract pieces will be on display, but some of the older, more realistic scenes of Cranbury will also be hanging in the gallery.
"I thought it would be a good setting, considering the show is in Cranbury," Ms. Broomer said. "I don’t think I’d have the chance to show it again. It’s kind of a retrospective."
Ms. Broomer has also exhibited her work at the Hudson Museum of Art, the Edrman Art Gallery in the Princeton Theological Seminary and Gallery 311 North in Glen Gardner.
The Gourgaud Gallery is located at 1 Schoolhouse Lane in the Town Hall Building. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from noon until 3 p.m.

