Zach Hyman is a United States born multimedia artist working in photography, video, sculpture, and installation. He was born outside of San Francisco and moved all over the United States as a child; from California, to Texas, to Pennsylvania. He studied acting, movement, and performance for two years at North Carolina School of the arts and then left to pursue photography as an art and career in 2007. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn NY. He shares his existence and exploration with his partner and wife, Mariana as well as his two fur children Falafel and Tahini.
STATEMENT : RECENT WORKS
My current work aims to deconstruct conventions about what is real and what exists in our physically expressed world, and to better comprehend the possibilities for living and thinking outside of the accepted definitions of reality and identity. Over the past few years I have been exploring varying routes away from the idea of self, meaning, and the “known” through existentialist readings, meditative experimentation, and artistic practice. Through distortions created in camera of archetypal studio setups and subjects—in these specific instances, human forms and floral still-life— I’m attempting to materialize and physicalize the rare, fleeting moments of clarity in grasping the concept of consciousness.
No digital manipulation has been used to create these images, aside from minor exposure adjustments and detail extraction for printing and some iterations are captured on film. This is important to mention because it feels closer to having been born out of happenstance and release, in turn creating a less authored process in which I have less control over the resulting image. Using reflective surfaces and long and/or multiple exposures, the camera is able to tap into elongated phrases of time and hundreds of alternate abstracted realities in order to create a more unimpeded image repertoire. Because of this unburdened and spontaneous approach, the images are allowed to come into existence more organically. In the desire to remove myself further from the process, I plan on allowing the image to fully present and capture itself in future images with some method of automation or randomness. The time phrases and objective surface elements are being exposed with a blind eye in the softer, more washed out works in this series as the view finder remains blocked by the mirror element within the camera body. While the accepted physical form and interpretation of the subject sits alongside me, I choose to explore its other possibilities, releasing it from its preconceived definition.
Along with these final images comes numerous new methods of photographing, lighting, composing, and an altered awareness of my surroundings. This is what excites me as an artist; to be able to push a medium as I delve deeper into its exploration, be it emotionally, visually, or technically. This series has allowed me to experience all three.
To search beyond one’s own constructed identity(s) and sense of reality is, I believe, not only a choice but a necessary path towards understanding
“otherness” and our collective, limiting, interpretations. On a micro scale this exercise of relinquishment has the potential to grow into a larger, and hopefully, positive social transformation. At this stage, I believe it beneficial for humankind to open it’s collective mind and accept that we “don’t know” in order to make room for new expressions of consciousness, inclusiveness, and connectivity. In creating these photographic works, I hope to draw attention to and illustrate that definitions are restrictive, and that other possibilities exist if we allow ourselves to see them.
