FRANK-RATCHYE PROJECT SPACE - ZACH SEARCY
If you’re not cheating you’re not trying, 2020, Acrylic on linen, 30 x 30 x 1.5 in. & Ramp, 2020, Acrylic and caution tape on wood panel, 30 x 20 x 12 in.
For the month of March, the Frank Ratchye Project Space will be showcasing Studio Artist Zachary Searcy’s stimulating paintings. Concerned with class difference, accessibility, exclusivity, and societal complacency Searcy’s work challenges viewers to engage in critical self reflection. The artist has cleverly repurposed material objects that hold value, working them into frames, canvases, and embellishments to challenge traditional notions of painting and to critique Capitalist hierarchy.
“One day I was laying in bed looking at my plastic laundry basket and it occurred to me that, like acrylic paint, it’s just hardened plastic. Physically, the laundry basket became just as much a painting to me as any other painting. This realization allowed me to feel okay about demystifying painting in my head. Being self trained, I already cringed at the fact that the art world came up with the term “outsider artist,” so realizing the materiality of paint really freed me to just make what I want to make.”
Read more about Searcy’s process and work here.
Zachary Searcy is a mixed media artist from Knoxville, Tennessee. A self trained artist, Searcy opened and curated a gallery space in Knoxville to encourage growth within the contemporary art community by showing local and national artists. Now residing in San Francisco, Searcy works within the space between painting and sculpture.
