Zach Leonard
Bio
Zach Leonard (b. 1991, Waterloo, IA) lives and works in Saint Paul, MN. He received his BFA from the University of Northern Iowa in 2015 and his MFA from Colorado State University in 2021. His practice centers on broken, discarded, and unconventional materials as analogues for the human body. Through a tactile language of texture, fragmentation, and transformation, he invites viewers to consider how meaning persists in what is often overlooked, forgotten, or discarded.
Artist Statement
My studio practice investigates the emotional and physical resonance of broken or discarded materials encountered in everyday life and their relationship to the human body. My work emerges from a sustained attentiveness to damage, repair, and the quiet histories embedded in everyday objects. This awareness is rooted in my recovery from a school bus accident during my teenage years, when I became acutely attuned to and identified with damaged or unusable things.
Like the body, objects bear visible traces of trauma, wear, and repair. Through sculpture and drawing, I explore how these materials can generate intimate, awkward, and uncanny forms that evoke fragmented or vulnerable bodies. Working across mediums, I incorporate everyday materials - broken furniture, unconventional paints, and discarded objects - treating them as both stand-ins for bodily fragments and as surfaces that foreground texture, instability, and abstraction.
Through this practice, I examine how processes of material transformation reflect broader themes of fragility, resilience, and embodiment.
Website: zachleonardart.com
Instagram: @zachtleo