Robert Zehnder

BIO

I was born in 1992 in Summit, New Jersey. In the spring of 2015, I graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree. Shortly after I moved to New York City where I've been living and working since.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Currently, I have been creating paintings of fictitious landscapes. They are multi-perspective compositions of intersecting vignettes without inhabitants or objects. I prioritize an expanded middle ground, the space regularly shortened between the figure and a conclusive background. For me, these spaces, often overlooked, can describe feeling or emotion just as potent as those intended to be portrayed through an object or figure.

The process of making these works feels autonomous and personal, but yet not void of any external forces. Drawing fictitious maps can feel like a therapeutic exercise and can have psychological and expressive results. Societal anxiety comes into play when the landscapes, often dubious and tumultuous, echo the pressing unknowns inherent to everyday life.

I paint oil on canvas. The works begin with a line drawing to delineate all of the paths and forms. This is when I play the role of the map maker. I do not plan the works and instead draw from the top-down, allowing the paintings to have the proper order of grounds (background to foreground) while allowing for illogical scales and perspectives to happen.

The American Regionalist artists, Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton depicted the natural landscape as a bent and tormented field that captured the uncertainty and volatility of its inhabitants. A post-industrial impending doom and forced perspectives. I draw maps and paint landscapes that have the movement of a carpet being rolled out before the viewer. An invitation, the carpet could be removed from underneath their feet at any moment. I intend for the viewers to have that same suspicion of the grounds I'm plotting out on the canvas. There is a potential of a false bottom or an underbelly un-trustworthy.

Interview with Robert Zehnder

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you became interested in becoming an artist? Who or what were some of your most important early influences?’

I grew up in a suburb in New Jersey. My father was a truck driver and my mother worked for car dealerships my entire life. I spent a lot of time in the woods behind our house which extended about an acreuntil it was stopped by a freight rail line. On the other side was a governmental depot and behind that was the estate of tobacco and electric power industrialist James Buchanan Duke, which was fenced off most of my upbringing. I mythologized these places very early on, which I drew a great deal of inspiration from.

The other kids in the neighborhood and I would draw maps of the woods behind our houses. We would give names to certain landmarks and delineate different regions or sections. There were characters and places, like ‘Rocky’ who was a man that walked round in the woods, who later we would find out, worked at the Lowes off the highway nearby, and the boarded-up house, which was just a vacant un-kept house that touched into our territory. Both were fertile for suspicion and fiction.

My experience with art at a young age was limited to line drawing in notebooks and making comic strips. I had no formal training and never actually painted or sculpted until I was past the age of 18. I mostly used drawing as a tool to pass the time or as a note-taking device.

After graduating high school, I attended Raritan Valley Community College. I arrived with the intent to study graphic design. I had a professor who insisted that I could pursue a career in fine art. I had no idea what the parameters of that could be. I remember doing a charcoal drawing of some blocks and cones. It was the first time I had ever accomplished creating the illusion of light. It was very exciting. I had only done linear drawing before this. Even though I wouldn’t move into observational drawing or painting after this, this moment did change my understanding of the activity and potentiality of art-making.

Where are you currently based and what initially attracted you to working in this place? Are there any aspects of this specific location or community that have inspired aspects of your work?

I am based in Brooklyn, NY. I moved here after I finished my undergraduate degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I grew up in New Jersey, so this was sort of my default city. I had always planned on living here at some point or another. There is a nature to how unpredictable and maximal this city is. It can be incredibly intimate or entirely alienating. I was thinking about how I am the kind of person who wants to see either everyone or no one, which makes me feel like a suitable person for New York. Outside of looking at it romantically, there are incredible institutions and resources for artists here, and also great spaces and galleries.

Can you describe your studio space? What are some of the most crucial aspects of a studio that make it functional? Do any of these specific aspects directly affect your work?

My studio space is in my two-bedroom apartment. The floor is lined with green butcher paper. Depending on the light and time of the day, it makes the walls look like the room is painted a light teal. I find it helpful to tend to my apartment between studio work, I actually get better thinking done that way. Though, I foresee a move to a separate studio approaching. Spaces like this can be limiting for larger more involved projects.

The most crucial aspect of a studio is designing it to what you need. It is a hard question to answer because you can change your entire studio to accommodate whatever project or concept you’re working on.

Having something comfortable to sit on is nice.

What is a typical day like? If you don't have a typical day, what is an ideal day?

I usually wake up, make coffee, and listen to the news. If it is a studio day for me, I will usually run errands or take care of anything that isn’t art-making in the morning. In general, I don’t really ever start making art until the afternoon or after I eat lunch. I am definitely a noon to 8 pm kind of worker. An ideal day for me is just one that is balanced. I get some work done, talk to a friend, read a little, maybe go to the park, a little bit of nightlife, and probably a good night’s rest.

What gets you in a creative mindset?

It is hard to say when I am in it or out of it, and I don’t say that because I think that I am in a constant state of creativity. I say it because of the amount of media I and possibly most others inherently consume. Every time I pick up my phone or look in my browser I see pages that are open that relate to my interests. Whenever I am in transit I get inspired and start to think or plan, or if I am reading, listening, watching, or looking at something. The constant of those activities allows for easy access to a ‘creative mindset’. To push me into the act of making takes a bit more though, usually, I have to start prepping or I sweep or organize my studio.

What criteria do you follow for selecting materials? How long have you worked with this particular media or method?

Though I experiment and work with different materials, primarily I am painting. I have been painting for about ten years and at the moment I am only using oils. The open time of oil paint allows me to materialize at a pace at which my body is used to. When you wash dishes or write in a notebook you are not pressed against a clock. It is more forgiving that way and allows you to move in any which way you’d like.

When it comes to other materials, I typically am using them to achieve an artifice. I seldom am using materials to have a conversation about materiality. Though, that is subject to change.

Can you walk us through your overall process? How long has this approach been a part of your practice?

I have a few different material processes I use depending on what type of painting I am making.  As of late, I have been making landscapes that are primarily automatic and have a somewhat consistent methodology to them. I stretch canvas over panel so that I have a rigid and flat surface that is durable enough for me to work into. After priming the canvas, I draw out the composition. This is the most important moment for me in the process. This is when I am hardwiring the painting. I draw out a few different perspectival points and have a few floating objects to work as anchor points. I then connect all of these moments to create grounds and planes that are logical. I leave some empty spaces so that I give myself the opportunity for challenge and solution while applying paint. Starting at the sky, I work from the top down. The palette is planned by pigments I choose. I have somewhat of an idea of the tonality, but not necessarily the colors of any forms.

I have been painting like this for only a year. I have typically always worked in series but nothing had ever gone past maybe three or four months.

Can you talk about some of the ongoing interests, imagery, and concepts that have informed your process and body of work over time? How do you anticipate your work progressing in the future?

I have always had an interest in psychology and mythology. As a painter, it was easy to find interest in those categories, especially if you have an interest in figuration. I used to look to the surrealists a lot. When it came to the paintings of those artists, they achieved uncanniness, the familiar clashing with the unfamiliar, while using very seductive methods. I, like many other painters, was excited by the maximal and gratuitous nature of surrealism in painting form. In short, painting pictorial tricks is very fun. Magritte painting a house at night during the day or an apple the size of a living room.

About a year ago I began to expand the background and middle grounds of my paintings, while still having a central object or figure occupying the space. I realized soon that what I enjoyed most was creating an expanse. Particularly, the act of mapping and creating paths. Once I abandoned the prioritization of figure above ground, I started to actually engage with the concepts in psychology and mythology I had been interested in. I realized I didn’t want to be the storyteller as much as I wanted to be the map maker. I recently have been looking at a lot of renaissance painting and 19th - 20th-century landscape painting. I like to compare the usage of allegory between these two genres/ eras. The Renaissance painters use 'on the nose' symbology to share ideas and stories while the 19th-century landscape painters invoke the presence of their ideals through how they are painting their subject matter. I.e. god is nature and nature is god.

I have been spending longer amounts of time with individual works that I am interested in. There are a few paintings/ frescoes in Europe I am going to travel to see this coming spring/ summer. I plan on basing some of my upcoming shows around concepts that are related to or about those works. In regards to materials, I will be working on sculptures and sound in the coming months, in tandem with painting.

Do you pursue any collaborations, projects, or careers in addition to your studio practice? If so, can you tell us more about those projects, and are there connections between your studio practice and these endeavors?

Outside of visual art-making, I also make music and write. I am working on integrating all of these practices. It is a slow process as it should be. It is good to be patient and have everything be well-rounded enough to be paired or infused.

I have been enjoying learning about the different Church/ Gregorian modes. It is interesting to be learning these scales while looking at religious paintings. It is an obvious pairing to make, knowing these images and sounds have historically existed in the same spaces. The church, in a way, is one of the best examples of a multi-media experience. There is a phantasmagorical nature to it, allowing for a high fidelity experience, like that of film, where you have the soundtrack, dialogue, and visuals all synced together. That fidelity is what interests me at the moment.

As a result of the pandemic, many artists have experienced limited access to their studios or loss of exhibitions, income, or other opportunities. Has your way of working (or not working) shifted significantly during this time? Are there unexpected insights or particular challenges you’ve experienced?

Unfortunate as it is and was, I did find myself with a lot more time to work on my art and myself. The isolation helped me with realizing what I actually wanted and needed. I learned how to work through projects and ideas faster. I found it easier to throw things away or follow concepts I wouldn’t have because I was making in a vacuum. Nothing was going to be seen or exhibited so I was really just making for myself.

Can you share some of your recent influences? Are there specific works—from visual art, literature, film, or music—that are important to you?

Hans Memling’s Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation. This work is a double-sided triptych. What I like about this work is how much confusion there is around it. Suspicion of Memling not actually making the work himself, questions of who or what it was made for, and also questioning of the iconography. Certain panels have text painted in the image, one, in particular, is of a thin figure with a gash in its stomach and a skeleton head, holding a banner with text in Latin that translates to "This is the end of Man; I am like mud (or clay) and I return to dust and ashes"

Who are some contemporary artists you’re excited about? What are the best exhibitions you’ve seen in recent memory and why do they stand out?

Too many great artists to name ;)

The Marguerite Humeau show at Clearing titled Energy Flows. The use of lighting and framing in this show is great. Artworks are spotlit and the remaining space is near dark. It achieves that phantasmagorical or sensorial experience I was speaking of before. The sculptures are like glowing specimens frozen in time and the 2-d works were like windows with embryonic veils. The quietness and lack of light allowed for the viewer to take on a bit more anonymity, or have the feeling of lurking in the shadows, propositioning a shed of ego, which changes the viewer’s relationship to the artworks.

Do you have any tips or advice that someone has shared with you that you have found particularly helpful?

That same professor from community college said a few things;

“It helps to take a year off and shovel shit at the zoo’

“You're going to meet a lot of people that are going to be better than you and smarter than you”

“8 bad paintings are better than one good painting”

“Sometimes, you just have to put your flag down”

What are you working on in the studio right now? What’s coming up next for you?

I just had a show open recently so my studio is pretty empty. There is a puzzle I completed that I have no idea what to do with. Do you just frame it or do you de-puzzle it?

I am getting ready to start experimenting with materials for some sculptures I want to make. I have projects/ shows coming up this Summer and Fall.

To find out more about Robert Zehnder check out his Instagram and website.