Troma! The Poster Paintings
Opening Reception May 16th, 2026 4pm-6pm
Show runs from -
May 16th, 2026 - August 1st, 2026
This exhibit will contain the actual paintings used in many Troma films.
Biography
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Tricia Zimic (b. Long Island, NY) is an international sculptor best known for porcelain works that anthropomorphize animals to explore moral allegory, environmental themes, and human behavior. Her primary body of work, the Sins & Virtues series, consists of fourteen hand-modeled porcelain sculptures of chacma baboons, chosen for their expressive physiognomy and historical precedent in Johann Joachim Kändler’s 18th-century Meissen Monkey Orchestra.
Zimic studied at Parsons School of Design in New York and continued her training in ceramics at the New Jersey Center of Visual Arts, and painting at the Art Students League of New York. She further developed her porcelain practice through research at the Meissen Porcelain Manufactory and the Dresden Porcelain Collection in Germany. Earlier in her career, she worked as an illustrator and created more than 20 original oil paintings for Troma Entertainment’s cult horror movie posters, including The Toxic Avenger Market Records Original porcelain sculptures from the Sins & Virtues series have sold in the range of $8,000-$12,500 in private sales. In 2022, the Meissen Porcelain Manufactory selected her sculpture Diligence/Kintsugi for reproduction in a limited edition of 25, priced at 12,184 euro (approximately $13,000) each. Her 1980’s oil paintings for Troma Entertainment have sold for $6,500-$10,00. Nancy Drew painting sell at $2,000. Exhibitions (selected) Hunterdon Art Museum Members member’s show ‘Rage’ 2025/2026 Philips Mill Juried exhibit 2025 ‘Freedom” sculpture Sins & Virtues, Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, NJ (2023) Gallery Blue Door, Baltimore, MD (2022) International Porcelain Biennial, Albrechtsburg Castle, Meissen, Germany (2022) Essential Life, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ (2011) Wild Urbania, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY (2010) Recovery New Jersey: Wild Habitat Renewal, New Jersey Historical Society, Newark, NJ (2010) Collections Her work is in collections of the New Jersey State Museum (Trenton, NJ), the Morris Museum (Morristown, NJ), and the Meissen Museum (Meissen, Germany), private collectors in Europe, Asia, Serbia as well as in the United States. Zimic lives and works in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. Sources Hunterdon Art Museum exhibition materials, 2023 Ferrin Contemporary artist documentation, 2021 Bucks County Herald, “Bucks Artist Tricia Zimic to show at International Porcelain Biennial in Germany,” July 13, 2022 River Towns Magazine, Summer 2024 Artist’s professional website and exhibition history |
Statement
My journey as an artist has been long, weird, and wonderfully unruly. After graduating from Parsons School of Design, I dove into illustration — children's books, science fiction, whatever needed a sharp image and a little attitude. Eventually, that road led to movie posters for Troma Entertainment, the notorious indie studio behind The Toxic Avenger.
In the late 1980s, I created a run of posters for Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz-twenty loud, hand-painted love letters to cult chaos. Each one was a full oil painting, typically 20 x 30- 30×40 inches, built up in layers the old-fashioned way: no shortcuts, just brush and pigment. I wasn’t “in” the horror scene at the time… but I was game.
When I joined the wonderful circus, the first two Toxie films were already out. The challenge? Make the next image so irresistible you’d stop cold in the video store aisle-no trailer, no context, just pure visual seduction. The painting had to do all the talking.
Our process was beautifully unpolished and completely collaborative. Lloyd and I would sit down in a room cluttered with props, posters, and general creative mayhem (my natural habitat) and spin ideas about what might-or might not-happen in the film. Lloyd loves to clown, but don’t be fooled: he’s a Harvard guy with a razor brain. The artwork had to be smart and
savage.
I loved casting real people-friends, family, and total strangers off the streets of New York-as my models. Sometimes I even got to visit shoots and raid the prop department. I once borrowed a friend's chainsaw for Surf Nazis Must Die. (No one was harmed. Only the paint.)
For a couple of intense years, I became Troma’s sole illustrator (1986-1988). It was fast, fearless, and an absolute blast-high craft meeting lowbrow genius, with a deadline breathing down your neck.
And Toxie? He never really left. He’s survived generations, traveling worldwide, mutating into stage adaptations, and still horrifying and delighting with zero discrimination. Somewhere in that mythology, my paintings became part of how people first met him.
Today, my work has shifted into a different kind of storytelling: narrative, anthropomorphic porcelain sculptures collected nationally and internationally. Different medium, same mission: make an image that grabs you, keeps you looking, and leaves you slightly changed.
In the late 1980s, I created a run of posters for Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz-twenty loud, hand-painted love letters to cult chaos. Each one was a full oil painting, typically 20 x 30- 30×40 inches, built up in layers the old-fashioned way: no shortcuts, just brush and pigment. I wasn’t “in” the horror scene at the time… but I was game.
When I joined the wonderful circus, the first two Toxie films were already out. The challenge? Make the next image so irresistible you’d stop cold in the video store aisle-no trailer, no context, just pure visual seduction. The painting had to do all the talking.
Our process was beautifully unpolished and completely collaborative. Lloyd and I would sit down in a room cluttered with props, posters, and general creative mayhem (my natural habitat) and spin ideas about what might-or might not-happen in the film. Lloyd loves to clown, but don’t be fooled: he’s a Harvard guy with a razor brain. The artwork had to be smart and
savage.
I loved casting real people-friends, family, and total strangers off the streets of New York-as my models. Sometimes I even got to visit shoots and raid the prop department. I once borrowed a friend's chainsaw for Surf Nazis Must Die. (No one was harmed. Only the paint.)
For a couple of intense years, I became Troma’s sole illustrator (1986-1988). It was fast, fearless, and an absolute blast-high craft meeting lowbrow genius, with a deadline breathing down your neck.
And Toxie? He never really left. He’s survived generations, traveling worldwide, mutating into stage adaptations, and still horrifying and delighting with zero discrimination. Somewhere in that mythology, my paintings became part of how people first met him.
Today, my work has shifted into a different kind of storytelling: narrative, anthropomorphic porcelain sculptures collected nationally and internationally. Different medium, same mission: make an image that grabs you, keeps you looking, and leaves you slightly changed.
Website - https://www.triciazimic.com/Artist.asp?ArtistID=36403&Akey=XPRY2J6X
Troma Posters - triciazimicillustration.com/#/archive/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/tricia.zimic
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/triciazimic/