ARTIST STATEMENT
In a sun-drenched kitchen in the Midwest. A young girl with wild eyes and wilder dreams dips her fingers into her mother’s freshly pressed fruit juice—not to taste, but to dye yarn the color of fire. That girl was Nancy Mahanna Przygoda. Today, the world knows her simply as Zoda.
What began with fruit-stained fingers evolved into an extraordinary life of artistry that spans continents, cultures, and generations. Zoda is not just an intuitive artist—she is a force of nature, channeling her Lebanese ancestral history and modern elegance into each stroke of her brush. Her mediums range from oils to gold leaf, her materials both sacred and earthy, her canvases are portals into the layered soul of our shared human story.
She spent time in the school of fine arts, but her truest education came from listening—listening to music, to spirit, to story. Her career first took root in Chicago’s buzzing design world, but it was in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, where her soul found its counterpart. For 22 transformative years, Zoda became a creative architect of the Caribbean’s visual language, leaving her mark on cultural landmarks like the GoldenEye Resort, designed for Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, and the Bob Marley Museum in Nine Mile. Her influence echoes through spaces once touched by legends—Bob Marley, Errol Flynn, Keith Richards, Noel Coward, Dolly Parton, and more. Yet her most profound collaborations were always with spirit, memory and place.
Zoda’s crown jewel is not celebrity or acclaim—it’s her paintings. Raw, regal, and resonant, each piece is a conversation between soul and surface. Using natural pigments, sacred symbols, and emotion as both compass and fuel, her work transcends style. It invites reflection, it holds memory, and it doesn’t ask for your attention—it commands it.
Her pieces live in private sanctuaries and visited public collections. They’ve graced galleries from Harmony Hall in St. Mary to Kingston HQ to Saint Louis, and wherever they land, they do not hang quietly—they speak.
A visionary. A mother. A grandmother. A teacher. Zoda has shared her gifts generously, creating educational programs for underserved youth, teaching not only art but self-worth, healing and reflection through the act of creation.
When you stand before a Zoda original, you’re not just looking at a painting. You’re looking into a living story, textured with intuition, layered with memory, and touched by the same hands that once dipped into fruit juice to color the world her way.
Zoda paints not just what is seen, but what is remembered.
She paints presence. And if you listen closely, her art will speak directly to yours.
