Thank YOU!!!

After getting married last December I felt the overwhelming love and kindness from people I had never met before. I was blown away at the efforts of some to share in our joy of starting the next chapter of our lives. So last month I took a break from some projects to do these to little(9"x12") oil sketches for some of my new family. The only way I know how to really say, "thank you." I put on Ken Burns Jazz series and listened to the amazing stories from the history of Jazz as I painted Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane.

Commission, March 2013

This young man was an incredible sport and extremely polite. He comes from a fantastic family who I am so blessed to have met. This portrait was done of him after spending the day skiing at Snowbird resort. The amazing colors of their locker room helped make this one of the most enjoyable commissions of recent memory.  Jackson(oil on canvas), 30"x 30".  

300 Plates Show, Art Access

One of the best art fundraisers I have ever participated in. This is a show not to be missed. Art Access hangs just over 300 small paintings(10"x 11") by roughly 100 Utah Artists. Their cause is amazing and worth your time and a donation. It is happening Thursday, May 16th from 6-9 pm, at 230 South and 500 West  in Salt Lake.

230 South 500 West #125
S230 South 500 West #125
Salt Lake City, UT 84101alt Lake City, UT 84101

Artist Statement for Thesis Show

 
Vita-logy

  The Study of Life 

My intent as a painter is to arrest motion on canvas, to capture life and hold it fixed. I am interested in making paintings of personal experiences, some as I remember and others as I prefer to remember them.  Referencing family photo albums and contemporary imagery, I aim to create a nostalgic world once imagined, now conceivably constructed with paint.  As I reflect on memories I hope to bring to life a personal mythology to better understand my reality.

In this show I chose to focus on seven hypothetical stages of human development from the vantage point of a male raised in suburban US. Ranging from the freedom of a child to the joys of an elderly father at a family dinner, each painting represents a different phase of life.

                                                                                                                    

                                                                                                                   Zachary Proctor

                                                         

Thesis Show Painting Number Nine or 9-40

This is an installation of 32 paintings hanging together to make one piece. All these canvases are
24"x 24", so this piece is eight feet tall and sixteen feet wide. It was an interesting experience to group all these together and see them juxtaposed next to one another. It was hard to get a good picture through the window next to the wall, but it sure made for a spectacle when driving by the building.

This is a photo my father took of me and my dog Sage before my Thesis Show. Sage hates cameras and I hate having my picture taken, but we both agreed it was necessary.

Erik Olson and his son getting a closer look.

Thesis Painting Number Eight

Family Dinner (72"x 72") oil on canvas. This was an interesting painting to work on. I sort of dove in and just started with the center focus of the painting and worked my way out. It is a strange thing to paint the people close to you. As you put brushstrokes down you reflect on the lives of your loved ones and come to see them in a different way. You start to appreciate what beautiful people they are becoming as they make their way through life. These Sunday dinner family moments are what are important in life and yet we seem to move through them without taking a the time to let them soak in. I am pretty sure at the end of my life as I sit with more time to ponder that I will reflect back and crave one of the these dinners and the lively conversations that are shared at my parent's dinner table.

This painting will be hanging for the next few months at the Spring Salon in the Springville Art Museum in Springville Utah. They put on a great show and I invite you all to go.

Day one, after three hours painting.

This is after day two. 

 After ten days of painting.

Thesis Show Painting Number 7

This painting titled, Family Home Evening is six by eight feet in size. I limited the tools I usedin order to add to the awkwardness of the scene. I painted it largely with 2 and 3 inch brushes and different types of palette knives. I wanted the family to seem comfortably uncomfortable as they consumed hours of television. The vantage point is from the inside of their TV, as though we the viewers are the actors in their program. "All the world is a stage."   


Thank you to the Earl family for their willingness to be painted in a less then flattering fashion.

  

Thesis Show Painting Number 6

 Follow Your Heart, oil on canvas(48"x 72") was painted with large brushes from a local dollars store. I wanted to avoid the details and make a painting that seemed slightly blurry, somewhat similar to what we experience in a dream. The painting is about those moments when time stands still and the conversation seems to be the center of the universe.

Thesis Show Painting Number 5

This painting titled Metaphysical Gravity is a diptych of two 48"x 48" pieces. There was a lot of experimenting during the process of this piece as I was looking into different ways to apply paint. I learned quite a bit working on these and the final product came second to enjoying the journey.

Lots of funny things occurring... boy and girl, day and night, little color and colorful, linear and ambiguous. It was fun to hide numerous things in this one.

Thesis Show Painting Number 4

Where the Sidewalk Ends(48"x 72") is the fourth painting done for my thesis based on the shaky stage of adolescence. This is a scene a friend and I witnessed in a small Utah town called Helper. The moment happened in the dead of summer and there was a kid walking around in a head to toe gorilla suit. There was an obvious love triangle happening in the moment which led to multiple f-bombs and a few birds flying back and forth.