Zachary Buchner: Lost in a Dream
@ Andrew Rafacz Gallery
835 W Washington Blvd, Chicago, IL 60607
Opening Saturday, November 4th, from 5PM - 8PM
On view through Saturday, December 23rd
ANDREW RAFACZ is pleased to announce Lost in a Dream, an exhibition of new wall works by Zachary Buchner in Gallery Two.
Continuing his practice as a materialist with a new focus on plastic, Buchner’s foam and acrylic wall works offer a quiet and poetic disorientation of vision that play on familiarity and quotidian human experience. Manipulating memory foam, commonly used to cradle and support the body, he carves and dyes the material to create his unique objects.
Buchner utilizes both additive and subtractive processes that reflect the artist’s interest in color field painting and the material fetishism of Los Angeles sculptors such as Larry Bell and John McCracken. He extends this historical visual language by focusing on contemporary technology, notably the flatness and vastness of the screens that are ubiquitous in our digital world.
Using both soft and rigid materials, the artist critiques experience and connectivity in our everyday lives. Foam, acting as an undulating ground, flattens and expands through the artist’s construction and negation. Acrylic acts as a frame and a surrogate for the screen. At once reflective and absorptive, while removing the noise that surrounds the viewer, Buchner’s objects investigate the beds we sleep in as well as the screens we stare at and how they stare back.
The results reveal a shallow illusionism, a backlight glow, and overlapping translucent layers that describe the omnipresent visual field in our digital lives. He replaces the open browser windows, guides and grids of the digital world with a direct relationship to material, while reminding us of his own hand and through reflection, our own bodies.
ZACHARY BUCHNER (Canadian, b. 1979) lives and works in Oak Park, IL. He received his BFA from Bowling Green State University, Ohio in 2001 and his MFA from Northwestern University in 2005. Solo exhibitions include ANDREW RAFACZ (Chicago, IL) and Illinois State University (Normal, IL). Group exhibitions include Gallery 400, curated by Pamela Fraser and John Neff (Chicago, IL), Elder Gallery (Lincoln, NE), La Montagne Gallery (Boston, MA), and Green Gallery (Milwaukee, WI). He operates the exhibition space Practise in Oak Park, IL. This is his third solo exhibition with the gallery.
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Tags: Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, Lost in a Dream, near west side, Zachary Buchner
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