Text by Finnian Boyle and Viivi Koistinen | Photography by Zach Thompson
Approaching Zach’s work, the viewer seems to be met with a sense of discrepancy. His older paintings portray humans, positioned in unusual ways; piled together or with their limbs bent to extremes. If a character is facing the viewer, its expression is a little peculiar and fearful, watching for some gesture of comfort.
His latest compositions in Why Me? (2024) somewhat invert this sentiment. They invite the audience in with imagery that is acutely recognizable, comfortable in a sense that has been forced upon the viewer, engendering distress if questioned further.
Zach was sitting in his living room when we called him. His walls were covered in a bookshelf, lit by a white standing light. Our conversation returned recursively to these concepts of familiarity, observed and upturned in his work.
Zach Thompson is a visual artist who lives in Detroit. Why Me, his latest series of paintings will be on show on ArtClvb’s app starting Tuesday, November 19th, 2024.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Are there any early aesthetic experiences that stick out to you?
The first time I was really taken away with someone creating something, was this one time my uncle came over. We were sitting in the basement, and he pulled out a piece of computer paper and started sketching a horse. It was this realistic drawing, proper shading, all the technical skills. It felt like someone doing magic, it was something I didn’t know he could do, something I didn’t know he possessed. I was shocked by it.
It intrigued me to look into creating; that’s what got me into drawing at a young age.
How old were you?
I want to say I was around five, five or seven.
I have a similar memory of my grandmother drawing rabbits really well. It’s a magical thing to witness as a child.
In some previous interviews, you’ve mentioned Captain Underpants. Are comics currently a touching point for how you make art?
I had a friend who lived on my street, and we got really into sharing the books and having conversations about them. I think we kind of felt like the characters at the time, we would make our own stories.
I wasn’t hugely into comics, but I’d be intrigued by random stuff at garage sales and such. I specifically remember this one Sonic the Hedgehog comic, I remember the creation of Spongebob Squarepants. Those were formative years of being influenced by cartoons and things I was seeing on TV. Video games too, they were a huge influence on me. Growing up in the 90s, seeing the evolution of all these characters - the way they’re presented and the way they communicate with their audience - has been pretty interesting.
To witness that shift in graphics must have been bewildering.
Yeah, it’s wild. I remember growing up on Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon.
Lately, I’ve been reconnecting to the things that have created my identity, kind of reaching out into the void. That’s been important to me.
What else feels formative to you right now?
Currently, traveling. I get a lot of inspiration from traveling, opening my eyes to new places. Every time I come back from a trip to somewhere I haven’t been before, I feel like I have a whole new bank of inspiration to work off of.
I’m fortunate to have those occasional opportunities to travel, but when I can’t, it’s looking inward, on things that confuse me and make me ask questions, my grief. Lately, I’ve been asking myself, “How can I communicate these ideas and these heavy thoughts in a way that’s light, and where everyone can find things that are familiar?” The abstracted bootlegs I’ve been doing, I feel like that’s my way of connecting the dots.
There is a lot of visual accessibility to those works.
For sure. On the surface, a lot of it feels light, but there are themes of death and ego; real human emotion in a package that, I think, is familiar to everyone.
I wanted those works to be a gateway to fine art for people who haven’t had the kinds of experiences I’ve had with certain paintings. The feelings of motivation I get from seeing a Guston painting on my most depressed day, is how I want to make people feel. I’m taking different approaches in order to do that good thing.
Your ArtClvb exhibit launches soon. Will it consist of these abstractions?
Yes. The bootleg abstractions, that’s what I’m calling them right now.
It’s work I feel really strongly about. I would never see myself technically doing pop art. These are very pop art in a sense, but they’re still abstractions to me.
And the show will exist entirely on the app?
Yeah, it’s on the app. The paintings, of course, are physical.
About that. Referencing the bio on your web page: in your works, you aim to --”explore the essence of what it means to be alive in an age where the boundaries between the tangible and the virtual blur”.
How do you approach digital space as a location for an exhibition?
I think it all comes down to accessibility, how my work can reach as many people as possible and influence as many people as possible, to comfort them, or, get them angry, make them feel something. I think the only way to do that nowadays, truly successfully, is through the digital.
People don’t have to drive three hours to a location, to pay for parking, to take work off.
Especially with my newer work, a lot of my thinking has been about how I’m able to communicate my message to people in a digital age. So, it feels right to show it through something like ArtClvb. A lot is changing, the meta of the art world is changing, so I’m thinking about how I can adapt and to see it in a positive manner instead of, “I don't want to do this because it’s something I’m not used to”.
How did you originally find out about ArtClvb?
I saw the exhibitions and the artists - this kind of underground community of artists who aren’t being represented by bigger galleries. I’ve been doing a lot of my own shows these past five-ish years. They’re mostly self-funded, self-curated. I’m trying to put the power in my own hands as an artist. I feel like that’s what ArtClvb is also trying to do.
Moving further into how you operate as an artist.
Vocal, aesthetic and societal self-definition are expected of people who make art and place it on view in a public realm. How do you approach this demand? How do you view your position as an artist, specifically in America?
Honestly, the way I approach it is by trying not to think about it too much. I try to make art for myself. It’s an approach that seems to become removed from art as we become career artists. For me, it’s about having fun and communicating a message, and if people can connect with that, so be it. It’s also not necessarily something that happens at that exact moment in time, in a specific physical space. With pieces of art, books or albums, I often am introduced to them in one moment, but it will take years for them to really affect me, for me to be ready.
My position as an artist is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
Ultimately, I express myself how I think I should. When it comes to American artists, our heads are often way too up our asses. So, I focus on being a confident version of myself in a way that also uplifts other people.
We were listening to a podcast episode you were on a few years ago, in Philadelphia. You mentioned realism being too mechanical for you, ‘building a cabinet as opposed to designing it’.
However: your new body of work, while it doesn’t comply with the tenets of realism, is composed of pieces with immediately identifiable, very exact references. How did that happen?
It’s, again, about being able to communicate a message to as many people as possible. Structurally and compositionally, mechanically, a lot of the logos I work with are really good. That’s why they exist in the space that they do, and are iconic as they are.
I could call these works my commercial hits, almost. I hate viewing it that way, but I do want people to see them, and to find familiar aspects.
Creating these works, I think, will bring people into my more personal, deeper, abstract works. I don’t know how to describe it, besides as an advertiser to some of my more figurative works. I'm still trying to make sense of it myself.
In your earlier works, humans are often strangely positioned. They're in piles, their limbs are bent. If they are looking at the viewer, their faces are very vulnerable.
As I reflect on those paintings and continue to explore them, I think a lot of it was ultimately influenced by fear. My anxieties about existing in an art community, or just being in public spaces, out and among people.
I love a lot of my older work but I do feel like a lot of it is being made from a place of fear. I feel like that’s where you get a lot of the ominous-looking figures that kind of peer out, letting you know they still exist in that space with their lines blurred.
Becoming an adult and an artist, those thoughts and feelings were prevalent.
How do you feel about making your work public? How do you go about it?
I like making my work public when I know the time is right for me. That has influenced me to focus on bodies of work as opposed to presenting painting after painting after painting. If I know I want to say something, I’ll spend a whole year exploring how to communicate it. And then, that’s when it truly becomes enjoyable for me.
It’s really important to me, still, to have my work in a public space even though that isn’t feasible all the time. But for a long time, I was so socially anxious I didn’t want to show my work publicly at all. My phone, uploading it to social media felt safer. Now, I realize my physical shows can become those comfortable spaces for artists who currently feel that way, and it’s important for me to create that.
To end, something we ask everybody we interview for ArtClvb. What do you collect? How do you collect?
What do I collect? That's a good question.
I don’t really think I collect anything. Growing up, I would collect Pokémon cards and video games. Now, my partner and I have a lot of books. I guess I’d say I collect art books.
Do you have a favorite recently?
Non-visually speaking, Widow Basquiat (by Jennifer Clement) and Night Studio by Philip Guston’s daughter (Musa Mayer). I think those are two really good books. Then, a visual art book. I just got Michelle Majerus’ On Aluminum.
RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS
What's your favorite place to grab a drink?
I don’t really drink anything but water and yerba mate cans. If I get dragged out of the house, I go to Keisling.
What are you listening to currently?
Lately, every year this time, I get into the Anthony Green album, Avalon. Then, a lot of guilty pleasure music. I've been listening to the new SahBabii album that just dropped today.
What's your favorite place to grab some food?
The most consistent one has been Flowers of Vietnam, that’s a place I love. There’s also this really good Phở place I’ve been going to in Madison Heights, Que Huong.
