PAUL ZACHARIAS

ARTIST STATEMENT

The subjects in Paul Zacharias’s work reside in recent histories of North American frontiers, still within long shadows cast from older, colonial histories. Death tropes and adventure both fuel and obscure the social criticism at work. Somewhere between icons and comic villains, these subjects appear from disparate histories, genres, and fables that have collapsed under their own hubris. In the remains these archetypes are like ghosts that recognize each other. Submerged in lush landscapes of troweled gold, the figures eye ball you; they seem to recognize the viewer as well. 

Zacharias received his B.F.A. from the University of Manitoba in 1999. He has exhibited his work across Canada and internationally. He has also worked for 25 years in film as a Key Scenic Artist (directing crews of artists) on more than fifty films across Canada. From 2014 to 2019 Zacharias was owner and director of LANTERN, a contemporary art gallery in Winnipeg. In 2019 he closed the gallery to focus on his art practice.