Meet Zach Valent

Today we’d like to introduce you to Zach Valent.

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
A couple of hours south of Chicago where the Illinois River widens to a measured two and a half miles, lies the quaint river city of Peoria, Illinois. This is where I grew up. While I enjoyed all the benefits of growing up in a city, I also found myself escaping to the nearby wilderness every chance I could get. I love nature and wildlife which ultimately became a great inspiration for my work.

Having grown up by simple means, my earliest artworks were created with household and recycled items. My father was a roofing contractor, so I had plenty of access to scrap construction materials and just enough tools to make things happen. To my recollection, on countless occasions my parents would find that I had transformed entire rooms into sprawling maze-like installations with nothing more than a large ball of string, or find the back yard littered with large structures constructed from scrap wood, rope, and whatever else I could find. As a teenager I drifted away from my passion for creating art for a few years. After high school I waited tables and worked as a laborer for a contractor remodeling homes and I was making great money. However, I eventually grew bored and I wanted more out of life, so I decided to go back to school at the local community college where I reconnected with my love for art.

In 2014 after completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at Southern Illinois University Carbondale located in the Shawnee National Forest, I took a leap for adventure and moved to the Sonoran Desert to pursue a Master of Fine Arts Degree at ASU. Since relocating to Tempe, Arizona, my artistic practice has shifted and developed beyond my imagination. In the summer of 2016, I returned from a six-week digital stone-carving residency in Italy with a new-found interest in digital technologies. Since then I have been exploring the possibilities of blending my very traditional skillset in sculptural processes with the hand of technology. Through the pursuit of academic success as well a professional career as an artist, my studio practice has intensified and become much more serious, but I will still always make room for artistic play as I did when I was a kid.

Please tell us about your art.
Through an imaginative exploration of a variety of materials and processes I strive to find a balance between aesthetic value and intellectual understanding. Within my artwork I incorporate a multitude of skills ranging from mold making and casting concrete, to metal fabrication, woodworking, digital fabrication, as well as experimental processes. While the visual properties of my work have rapidly changed and developed over the short course of a decade, the underlying theme and my interest in the relative understanding of time is ever present. By combining motifs of geological development, archeological remains, advancing technology, and modern-day imagery that is destined to vanish over time, I feel that I am simultaneously exploring the past, present, and the future.

My desire to build and create is partially driven by a quest to understand my own consciousness but also by an obsessive desire to make one-of-a-kind objects. I often find myself thinking about the next thing I want to make before I have even started a current project. It’s my hope that viewers of my art contemplate and engage in the complexities of what I have created as much as I do. Yet, that may be asking for a lot since I cannot really control the way people think. So, if all that is gleaned from my art is simply the pleasure of viewing an interesting object that makes one pause and contemplate its presence, then my work is successful.

Choosing a creative or artistic path comes with many financial challenges. Any advice for those struggling to focus on their artwork due to financial concerns?
Yes, learn to be comfortable with the fact that your career as an artist will most likely be accompanied by many different income streams. If those sources of income can be art related, then all the better. Whether you find yourself focusing on grant requests, teaching, doing private or public art commissions, and any other job for additional income, try to keep in mind that creativity can and does exist in everything you do. It will not always be you in your studio doing what you love, but at the end of the day, week, month, etc., you will always find some time to focus on the artwork you are passionate about. It takes so much hard work to earn financial success as an artist. Be prepared to invest endless nights and long hours in the studio and then go to bed and practically wake up with your work shoes on so you can get a few more hours in on some project before heading off to a job you don’t really want to do. These are the things that separate you from the weekend warriors. Being an artist becomes a way of life, and this includes being financially creative as well as continuously working at improving your craft.

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
The best way to view my work is through my website at www.zachvalent.com. I also use Instagram and can be found at @zvalentstudio. I exhibit my work nationally and internationally but am currently working on a large project. Keep an eye out.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.zachvalent.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zvalentstudio/

Image Credit:
Zach Valent

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