Big Rock Candy Mountain – Zach Horn

January 18 – May 4, 2019

Boston-based artist Zach Horn has created an exhibition where food and landscape take center stage. Horn has depicted key ingredients of a picnic: a watermelon, sliced cucumbers, a hot dog, bowls of spaghetti and even a life-sized gingham blanket. A massive graphite drawing of a cave functions like a backdrop that allows the viewer to almost step into the scene. In another area, the viewer confronts a three-dimensional sculpture of a yellow-hued mountain range that curiously projects from the wall.

Pattern and repetition are prominently featured throughout these selected works. In the large graphite drawing, Tomatoes, 2018, the artist has meticulously rendered slices of tomatoes placed in perfect rows. Horn states, “The food pictures are arranged in symmetrical abstraction, often with a closed composition. It’s recognizable form, but it is couched in the language of spiritual abstraction: patterns, mandalas, the grid, and the sublime landscape”. The artist’s celebration of routine daily tasks and the importance of coming together around food have inspired these compositions. The repetitive act of carefully preparing ingredients for the family meal may be a ruminative experience, just as drawing may be a meditative act. Ultimately, Horn invites the viewer to contemplate feelings evoked through food and the environment.

Zach Horn (American, born 1982) Watermelon, 2018, Graphite on Arches paper, Courtesy of the artist