Michael Zachary

I use simple marks in four different colors (CMYK) to create drawings and paintings that are much more complex than the sum of their parts. I want to position site contingency, physical presence, and a sense of place as a counterbalance to the hyper-mobility and fungibility of contemporary image culture, particularly digital images on internet. Although the language of my hand made images is "digital" (i.e modular, logical, and combinatoric) I am most interested in what happens when that language collides with the “resolution limitations” that result from it existing as a cumbersome physical object rather than flying free on the internet.

In other words, I am trying (and failing) to turn my body and mind into the world’s slowest, least efficient digital sensor and processor to find out what will happen.

I am interested in our relationship to technology and machines, in the possibility that a human being is in fact a complicated machine that creates and uses other machines to understand the world around us, and in the ways that our tools become filters that shape what and how we see. I think of most technology as an expanded field of printmaking.

Michael maintains a studio in East Boston, Massachusetts and is Assistant Professor of Art at Simmons University in Boston. He received his MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and is a recipient of support from The Joseph and Annie Albers Foundation, The Berkshire-Taconic Foundation’s Artist Resource Trust, The Massachusetts Cultural Council, Boston University’s Blanche Coleman Trust, Mass MoCA's Assets for Artists Grant, and The Surdna Foundation. His work has been featured at many venues including The Portland (Maine) Museum of Art, Burren College of Art (Ireland), Frappant e.V. (Germany), Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Wheaton College, Rhode Island College, Second Street Gallery (Virginia), Lux Eros Gallery (Los Angeles), Fountain (Brooklyn), Proof Gallery (Boston), European Gallery (Boston), Area Gallery (Boston), Shelter in Place Gallery (Boston), Cost Annex (Boston), and Room 68 in Provincetown, MA.

Sidewalk Quick shop
Still Life, Parrot Feathers and Broken Shell Quick shop
Chainlink Quick shop
Ducks and Waves Quick shop
Egret Quick shop
Waves Sky Reflection Quick shop
Sea & Sky II Quick shop
Waves & Reflection Quick shop
Egret Diptych Quick shop