PROFILE
Name
Zachary Styler
Education
School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2014 - 2015, Drop Out)
Rikkyo University
(2018- )
​Group Exhibitions
​93th Kokuten (2019)
​About Zachary Styler
​Zachary Styler never learned how to paint until he got in School of the Art Institute of Chicago(SAIC). All he painted was just 12 artworks for submitting a portfolio. In 2014, Zachary attended SAIC, and made about 20 paintings. However, he left the art college because of the expensive tuition fee. He burnt some of his paintings because he could not have enough money to bring those artworks to his country. After back to his country, Zachary painted few more paintings for a year. One of the paintings was on an online exhibition that was presented by a gallery.
In 2016, Zachary did not paint anymore, and moved to Japan. 3 years later, Zachary painted only 2 paintings. Then, he applied to 93th Kokuten without any hope because he was already fell into despair. However, one of the paintings was chosen. Unfortunately, Zachary had to back to his country with a personal reason. Now, he stays in his country.
Artist Statements
​ Zachary Styler's artworks are very similar to opera or musical performance. His paintings have stories like fairytales. The protagonist of those fairytales is a person who has no gender, age, personality, identity, knowledge, and even emotions. Also, the stories begin with the person travel somewhere. The person will see, listen, smell, taste, and feel something through the travel. As the person travel more, the protagonist is becoming a human being. That does not mean the stories end up with happy endings. That is because life coexists with pain.
People experience something with the five senses or less. The experience makes people feel something. The feeling brings emotion. With the feeling and emotion, people start to think. This process keeps repeating until the end of life. In the repetition, it is very hard to think everything in a positive way. Therefore, as time goes by, many people are getting more depressive. Perhaps, some people are not. However, in the end, all people die. So does the protagonist.
​ Zachary wants to express how a person falls into despair at an early age through his artworks. He reflects not only his early age but also diverse lives to the protagonist of his paintings. He shows many lives with different stories and themes. That is why Zachary is categorizing his artworks like musical notes; preludes, etudes, and scherzos. To Zachary, this progress is like time travel for doing his lifetime all again. As make things right, he is looking for what makes he falls into despair. By doing that, he wants to stop the falling. Simultaneously, Zachary hopes the audiences sympathize with the protagonist, and find the way not to fall into deep depression.