Featured Visual Artist Issue #15

I like to contemplate the difference between the artist and the craftsman. Craftsmen are educated and can consistently produce a desired result. They use their rational mind to bring ideas into the physical world. An artist, on the other hand, is a vehicle or a channel. The things that come through are not always in the artist’s control. I believe the irrational, subconscious mind is the source of the artist’s work. I strive to find a balance between the rational and the irrational, between natural emergence and conscious control. I may never tame the creative energy that fuels my work, and that is fine by me. I am excited each time I paint because I am not strangling the life out of my art; I am allowing it to pass through me and live a life that is its own.

Zac Franzoni is a working man’s artist. He did not go to art school and learn how to paint; instead he painted until he mastered his own style. The result is a unique process that creates visceral, organic, and even cosmic works of art that connect us to something deeper. Some have called him a visionary, but that is too pretentious for Zac. If you ask him about the importance of his art, he will most likely shrug and ask if you think it is pretty. He lives in Chicago and likes
The Rolling Stones and drinking good beer.