Zachary Presley, artist page

“Beautiful” women are often the focus in my work. I use the term beautiful sarcastically because I find that often as a child my grandmothers would tell me stories from children’s books about the beautiful princess finding her prince, or the woman that the love of her life pays no attention to until someone comes along and makes her beautiful. My work comments on this. I assign these often sad messages that have no redemption in my work. Not all of life is a happy ending, and beauty does not equal happiness. The found media that I use is even taken into consideration. I will spend time looking for text within articles, or photos that have particular moods that relate to the message in the piece. These messages include unrequited love, eating disorders, the loss of a child, etc. I like my work to have a crisp look. The placement of visual elements on the picture plane is very planned and deliberate. This gives my work a strong sense of control. I will start a piece by focusing on color, line, shape and texture. This is achieved by taking the pages and advertisements from old magazines and creating a type of grid for my first layer of imagery. While composition is crucial, I also include symbolic meaning. The use of threes and fives has to do with a number of themes. Three’s roots stem from the meaning of multiplicity. Three represents the advancement of energy, overcoming duality, expression, manifestation, and synthesis. Three is the first number to which the meaning "all" was given to. It is The Triad, being the number of the whole as it contains the beginning, the middle and the end. The number five symbolizes meditation; religion, and versatility. It represents the five senses. We find meanings to five in the five petal flowers, five pointed leaves--especially the rose. I enjoy the use of discontinued colors in my work. These colors bring an antiqued appearance to the work. I also use the color red in my work. Studies show that red can have a physical effect, increasing the rate of respiration and raising blood pressure. I choose this color because of its effect on the viewer and the many meanings it has. Red can be good or bad and it is this duality that I love about the color. This look did not arise independently. Like all artists I have many influences. My grandfathers have been heavy influences on my work. My grandfather, on my mother’s side, and I would spend a lot time talking about coin/currency collections. We would clean the coins, go to shows to buy them, and organize them by year and condition. Doing this meditative act day after day with him never got old; he loved history, and he loved telling me stories about the years that were on these coins and currencies. Seeing the portraits printed in the black ink on the surface of the old withered paper currency was such a sight to a kid with an overactive imagination and a grandfather fueling the fire. It was like while holding these objects I could see the stories as if I was a part of them. Now I have to say that though he was one of the greatest influences in my life, I had many, but I feel that many of the ideas of how my work is conceived were based on these early experiences. My grandfather on my father’s side is a builder, the kind of man that can make something out of nothing. I can remember being over at their house almost everyday after school. After a quick snack with our grandmother, my cousins and I would go out and watch our grandfather tinkering in his workshop. He would give us a handful of nails and a few old hammers; point to the pile of scrap wood and say “go to work.” This is very much like the way I work today, I acquire my media and “go to work.” I always looked up to this man. Watching and learning while he worked on whatever project, with the same diligence and details that a kid would imagine the gods took while constructing the world. It was this that helped form my drive for getting the details just right in my work. After all, I was born in a rural town, where my family has lived for several generations. Being in an area with little distraction and a focus upon family and friends has instilled in me the knowledge of how sacred the little things can be. MyGen Smashing Porcelina All art work on this page is copyrighted and is the property of the artist Zachary D. Presley

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