Zack Wester @z.wester

Behind the Curtain, 2023

Zack Wester is an emerging artist based in Montreal, working primarily with recycled car parts. His works addresses mental health and human behavior through abstraction.

———

I use truck hoods from the 60’s and 70’s as my medium because during these periods there were the most changes with motor culture. I am interested in the intersection of car culture and art as well as decorative art and fine art.

The rigidity of the pickup hood allowed for a clearer contrast to explore organic abstract shapes. The truck hood implies the doctrinal, sturdy and well-presented image we project of ourselves to the world. The inside of the hoods is purposefully left unpolished to represent the mental health struggles, which we keep to often hidden from the people we encounter. With this piece, I give the opportunity to peek Behind the Curtain and see the burnt, cracked and wrinkled parts of ourselves that we are ashamed of and work hard to hide.

Behind The Curtain is part of a series I have been working on for the past three years titled Mindblown. Through this body of work, I have questioned myself on the topics of mental health and human behaviour via abstraction. I started this series as a way to deal with my own mental health. My work is both a meditative and introspective journey which is achieved through my practical approach. I grew up being around cars a lot because my father is an ex-racecar driver and I also spent a lot of time helping my grandfather repair tractors and other machinery on his farm. Motor culture is a big part of how I interacted and came to learn more about the men around me. It created opportunities for deep conversations and life knowledge that they would not share in more traditional conversations. Because of my upbringing, I have always tinkered with cars and motorcycles and when my artistic journey began, I decided to explore the idea of approaching mental health through this medium. I was inspired by the birth of car and motorcycle clubs in the 50’s. Many people that came back from the war brought back their trauma and needed to find a way to process it, their solution was to create car and motorcycle clubs. People have found within these circles ways to build community and deal with their struggles. With my art, I aim to reappropriate these communities that are viewed as dated and problematic to showcase that they too have evolved and now embrace people from all walks of life.

Through Behind The Curtain, I explore the technique of lace paint jobs which uses the intricacy of the laces’ negative space. Finding it interesting that people used to intertwine the stereotypical femininity and domesticity of lace with the masculinity of car culture. I interlace these two traditional notions of “feminine” and “masculine” to create a hybrid for the 21st century. I want

to explore this phenomenon through reappropriation and make connections to its continued relevancy in community building in the 21st century.