Artist: Chet Zar
Title: Horror Head
Medium: Oil on Gessoboard in custom sculpted, hand cast urethane resin frame
Size: 5x7
Date: 2012
About the Artist: "Born on November 12th, 1967, in the harbor town of San Pedro, CA, Chet Zar's interest in art began at an early age. His parents were always very supportive and never put any limits on his creativity. His entire childhood was spent drawing, sculpting and painting.
Zar's interest in the darker side of art began in the earliest stages of his life. A natural fascination with all things strange fostered within himself a deep connection to horror movies and dark imagery. He could relate to the feelings of fear, anxiety and isolation that they conveyed. These are themes which had permeated most of his childhood drawings and paintings and are reflected in his work to this day.
The combined interest in horror films and art eventually culminated into a career as a special effects make up artist, designer and sculptor for the motion picture industry, designing and creating creatures and make up effects for such films as, "The Ring", "Hellboy I & II", "Planet of the Apes" and the critically acclaimed music videos for the art metal band Tool. Zar also embraced the digital side of special effects as well, utitlizing the computer to translate his dark vision with 3D animation for Tool’s live shows and subsequently releasing many of them on his own DVD of dark 3D animation, "Disturb the Normal".
But the many years spent dealing with all of the politics and artistic compromises of the film industry left Zar feeling creatively stagnant. At the beginning of 2000 (at the suggestion of horror author Clive Barker), he decided to go back to his roots and focus on his own original works and try his hand at fine art, specifically painting in oils. The result has been a renewed sense of purpose, artistic freedom and a clarity of vision that is evident in his darkly surreal (and often darkly humorous) paintings." - From chetzar.com
Statement: "When I start a painting, I let my intuition lead the way, just like when I was a kid, sketching without an obvious purpose, lost in a world of monsters. It felt like home then and it still does now.The characters I paint may seem like creatures from another dimension, but I think they are simply us, here and now. Modern humanity without it's masks, without the adornments that make us acceptable to whatever group we are a part of. From the straight-laced conservative to the anti-social rebel, we all cover up to fit in someplace. Yet the only place where we are truly the same is on the inside.We all share feelings of fear and loneliness. We feel insecure and vulnerable. We feel separate from our environment and each other. These are the feelings that I try to convey in my paintings. These are the feelings that connect us." -Chet Zar
About the Work/Connections: Zar creates ghoulish creatures he feels represent people and the emotions they have deep inside. I feel like that idea is very present in his work. You can see the emotions in his paintings- the fear, anger, shame, loneliness and wanting. The eyes of his creatures are so incredibly expressive, yet at the same time feel empty. His creatures are terrifying yet beautiful; you feel sorrow for them. It seems as if they are calling out to you through the piece.
