Upcoming Fred Simon Gallery exhibit: “No Story Comes from Nowhere” by Byon Anway, Faridun Zoda, and Joe Pankowski

Anway uses personal stories and historical events to understand how opinions and knowledge shape everyday life. His recent work focuses on crowds as a symbol of today’s collective experiences. Zoda’s art blends memory, myth, and cultural identity. Influenced by many traditions, he builds symbolic, dreamlike images that look at change, heritage, and the connection between people. Pankowski studies time by creating sequences of drawings, sculptures, and animations. His work shows how things move, change, and transform, making time feel visible and tangible.

Together, their work offers a simple but powerful look at how we remember, change, and understand our place in the world.

Artist Bios

Byon Anway

Byron Anway is an Associate Professor of Practice at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln in the School of Art, Art History, and Design. Anway previously taught art abroad at the International School of Brussels in Belgium and American Academy Casablanca in Morocco. Among other venues, his work has been exhibited at the Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha, NE), Manifest Gallery (Cincinnati, OH), and the Soo Visual Arts Center (Minneapolis, MN). His work has been published in New American Paintings (vols. 126, 138), Manifest’s International Painting Annual, and the Prairie Schooner.

Faridun Zoda

Faridun Zoda is an artist whose work bridges Eastern philosophical traditions and Western approaches to contemporary art. Born in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Zoda began his artistic education in 1970 at the age of eleven at the Moscow School of Visual Arts. He graduated in 1976 and earned a Master’s degree from the Moscow Surikov Academy of Fine Arts in 1982. After moving to the United States in 1994, he established his studio in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he continues to develop a diverse body of work spanning painting, sculpture, mixed media, and installation

Zoda’s artistic language is rooted in memory, imagination, and the transformation of experience into visual form. Rather than pursuing literal representation, he moves beyond realism to create his own interpretation of reality, using color, design, symbolism, and expressive form. His work explores the connections between people, cultures, landscapes, and ideas, bringing seemingly disparate influences together into cohesive visual narratives. Across his abstract and figurative works, Zoda balances structure and spontaneity, creating imagery that is both culturally grounded and open to individual interpretation

Zoda’s work has received numerous awards and recognitions and has been featured in international and regional publications. His art is represented in significant public collections, including the National Museum of China in Beijing, the K. Bekhzod National Museum of Tajikistan, the Academies of Fine Arts in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and the Museum of Nebraska Art.

Joe Pankowski

Joe Pankowskie is an artist, parent, and teacher originally from Omaha. He received an MFA in Electronic Visualization from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Over the course of his teaching career, he has taught Drawing, 2D Design, 3D Design, New Media Art, Animation, and Graphic Design, which is now his primary area of instruction. His artistic practice focuses on animation and the ways analog and digital technologies can be used to explore movement, transformation, and time. His work moves between physical and digital processes, incorporating drawing, found objects, and constructed sequences to examine how images and forms change over time

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