by AR Kinsella
Hi Zachary, what color are your shoes?
Brown, orange and pink.
Your sculptural work often assembles quotidian objects in jarring or unexpected ways. You mention in your bio that your process is somewhat aleatory, and I’m wondering where you come down on the virtues of agency vs. randomness in art.
I love art that touches on the virtues of agency and art that incorporates an aleatory process pretty equally. I have studied a lot about how different artists tackle the various inequalities seen throughout the western world including the over dominating heterosexual masculinity that plagues our society, the overt nationalism infesting western culture, and the abuse of power by those in charge of protecting the interest of civilian life. In terms of randomness in art I think that’s where a lot of surprising things can happen, things that one could never truly plan in terms of how the end product is going to look. This isn’t to say I don’t set limitations or boundaries. I might limit the materials or color schemes I will work from I just don’t plan the works out through sketching or creating a maquette. I just go with the flow.
Any major influences? You can completely ignore this question if you find it tired or hackneyed.
My major influences come from various sources like other artists such as Jessica Stockholder and David Bachelor, popular culture, reading various texts like other artist writings, philosophy, phenomenology and art theory, and just everyday life can give me the most inspiration.
Some of your sculptures look pretty precarious. Like, I wouldn’t want to tackle their construction necessarily. How much of your process is dedicated to solving the physical problems of your idea?
If I’m creating an installation for a specific space I typically start off with a basic concept of what materials I’m interested in using. I will spend several months researching topics I want to investigate and collecting materials. I tend to create an artist statement first and the work itself later. Sometimes I won’t create anything in my studio, but will directly create my work in the gallery the day before the exhibition. If I’m creating something like a painting I don’t really spend a lot of time on the research aspect, but focus more on intuition, and taking a more formalistic approach. With paintings I don’t really try to figure out what they are about, I like to leave that up to the viewer.
You’re also a painter. Do you compartmentalize your practice according to these categories — painter, sculptor, etc. — or is the creative impulse basically the same irrespective of medium.
I think the biggest thing that drives me to create either a sculpture or a painting comes down to funding, time, and how much space I have in my studio. In the last year I haven’t really had the funds to create sculptural works, so I have been painting a lot more then I typically would.
Fuck, Marry, Kill: Hank Hill, Dale Gribble, Boomhauer
Fuck Boomhauer, Marry Hank, Kill Dale
Any new pieces in the works?
At the moment I'm still working on a series of paintings for Dreyfest.
You’re only allowed to watch one movie for the rest of your life, and it has to be from the following list:
Hellraiser
Hellbound: Hellraiser 2
Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth
Hellraiser 4: Bloodline
You Don’t Mess With The Zohan
Which do you choose?
Hellraiser, that movie is a trip.
Of the myriad materials you’ve worked with, what’s been your favorite?
My favorite material to work with is plastic. The diversity and abundance of plastic gives me a lot of options to work with.
Finally, can you give us a self-portrait, whatever that means to you?
