Bio
Living and working in Chicago, IL, Weber draws inspiration from the aesthetic, material, and conceptual conditions the city and his studio offers. Constructed out of a spirited and self-mediaded interplay of color, form, his work interrogates the representative relationships between aestetics and perception. From an early age growing up in the city of Chicago, Weber fostered a creative awareness of his surroundings, integrating them into sculpture and installation. Weber’s aptitude of the urban environment, coupled with an early adoption of craft and design, laid the foundation of his conceptual, artistic pursuits.
Weber’s development as an artist came at a reckoning when at school studying business and economics. He promptly changed his educational goals, when, as he described, found himself sitting in a hundred-plus person lecture hall, flipping textbook pages synchronously amongst his peers. During his time at The University of Colorado Boulder, however, he had developed strong relationships with the work of Betty Woodman, Peter Voulkus, and John Baldessari, studying under Kimberly Dickey and Scott Chamberlain. Continuing his studies at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago (BFA, 2021), Weber was enveloped with creative possibilities far beyond craft and design. Alternating through experimental photography and sculpture, Weber sought mentorship under professors Nick Cave, William J. O'brien, and Matthew Siber. His experience at SAIC helped Weber realize the capacity of one’s value to art, and thus his own.
Post graduation, Weber’s fascination with sculptural and photo-based work was supported through the writings of Donald Judd, Roland Barthes, Robert Adams, Susan Sontag, and Carl Jung, amongst others. The collections of texts from artists, philosophers, and psychoanalysts alike plays a key role in Weber’s conceptual argument during his early, professional career. Weber describes his practice as “self-mediating” and “self-interrogating”, noting the work, as practice, carries aesthetic information as potential to use for further projects. Best demonstrated in his “Seedling” and “Bouquet” series, Weber’s intervention of formal and functional systems interrupt a conventional interpretation with the objects presented before us. For example, the cutting away at forms, latent within his built structures, become new elements as contributions to a more dynamic existence.
Weber was quick to integrate more influences in his growing practice, through frequent travel and museum studies. Works from post-modernists such as Richard Tuttle, Basquiat, late Rauchenburg, combined with classical works from Rubens, Goya, Turner, and Kandinsky found their way into Weber’s multi-media oeuvre. Analyzing aesthetic concerns throughout these maker’s time periods, emphasises the importance of reference, appropriation, and symbolism within the works Weber continues to produce. The artist’s recent visits to Senegal helped challenge dominant Euro-American ideals of creative culture. Reflecting on these times, Weber continues to interrogate raw, material languages through painting, embracing both the surface and its underlying structure.
As of this writing, Weber is transitioning from his home in Chicago to New York City, pursuing a MFA degree from Pratt University. It is there, the artist is looking forward to sharpening more skills and cultivating a wider community of other creatives dedicated to contemporary practices.
Notable exhibition and publication activities are listed below:
Art Miami 2022 With Zolla/Lieberman Gallery (Chicago, IL); Southampton Fine Art Fair 2022 With Ross Contemporary (Chicago, IL); Roll and Hill 2022 (SoHo, NYC); University of Indiana (2023); The Art Center of Highland Park (2023/24). Recent publications include: 2022— Genocchio, Benjamin, Of Mud and Magic—The Allure of Contemporary Studio Ceramics: Incollect (2022); Brammer, Mikki, Negative Space: Luxe Interiors and Design (2022); Connors, Thomas, Earthbound–Ceramicist Zachary Weber Lets the Clay Lead the Way: Sheridan Road Magazine (2024).