Zachary Cummings

CURATOR'S NOTE

With an education background in both the arts and science, Zachary Cummings explores the history of painting alongside the history of science, with the belief that both follow each other –sometimes art precedes physics, sometimes physics influences art. His abstract paintings are impactful and edgy, with a structural and architectural nature. He works with neutral colors as a base and overlays more bold colors to add character and flow to each of his paintings. When hung, Zachary’s works give a fresh, young, and modern look and feel to any room. There is an awareness in his paintings that there is a void between broken structures and the ruins in which they presently exist. These feelings of lapsed time are what you get when looking at his paintings – the distance between the past and the present.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Artist Statement - 'My practice is an investigation of the relationship between the accessible and the inaccessible within the frame of painting. This process is driven by methods of visual negation as a means of experimentation in the realm of visual logic. These methods include doubling, reversal, and defacement. In many of my recent paintings, there are two grounds at play: the raw canvas as well as the whitened surface prepared with gesso. By doubling the ground, an immediate relationship is established within which the lowest common denominator cannot be unambiguously established. Some of my paintings are approached from both the front and back of the canvas. The opposite side of the canvas serves as a parallel dimension. The marks that bleed through the surface present traces that appear one step removed from the action. On the front surface of the painting, the marks often play the role of figures; they are autonomous, indivisible, and related.'

EDUCATION

MFA, Visual Arts, Rutgers (2013)

BFA, Painting, Louisiana State University (2011)

BS, Physics, Louisiana State University (2011)

NYSS Landscape Painting Marathon (summer 2008)

MAJOR GROUP & SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2015 – Solo Show, No Foundation, Toronto, Canada

2014 – Group Show, Fakebox, Brooklyn, U.S.

2013 – ISE NY Art Search Exhibition, New York, U.S.

2013 – Rutgers Visual Arts MFA thesis show, Whitebox, New York, U.S.