ZACHARY HUTCHINSON
ARTIST STATEMENT

The artist Rosé Hernandez once said in an artist talk at UIC in 2016 that “I don’t need to talk about queerness; it is written on my body”. I’ve never felt so seen because my body, too, is an inherent queer body—a site where rebellion is an affect that cannot be decided but is permanently written onto the skin. My body itself is an act of rebellion, and I have no choice but to exist in that state in both public and private life. My work is fundamentally about this failure at gender. At its core, it emerges from living within a big man body—chest hair, broad shoulders, a receding hairline, stocky legs, a beard, and a thick waist—and the grueling ambivalence that comes with it. When I catch my reflection or see a candid photo, I am often astonished: “Is that me?” This body negates my innate performativity of femininity, and so I move through the world in a dance of failed gender. Through my artwork, I wish to present this failed dance because I believe this failure needs to (and is… to me) beautiful.

Found photos from crossdressers websites

A satin dress draped on broad shoulders, a shiny synthetic blond bob wig perched above a blue-hued square jaw, a large muscular calf beneath layers of queen-sized pantyhose. Gorgeous, important, beautiful failure. I celebrate these oppositions through my work. I aim to create a liminal space that is warm and caring for the un-passing gendered body, while also challenging and, at times, alienating the cis-hetero viewer, inviting them to pause and reconsider their own prescribed gender.

LEFT: Me and my parents at my BFA show (2014)

 RIGHT: Still from Season 7 Ep. 14 of the Simpsons titled Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield

My process is deeply interdisciplinary: I sew garments, draft patterns, make soft sculptures, record and edit videos, take photos, cast plaster, silicone, and latex, draw, and paint—but above all, I collect. I collect 4”x6” photos, printing hundreds of images at pharmacies—pictures of myself, friends, family, and screenshots from the internet—in hopes of collapsing the distance between public and domestic space. Many of these are memes; I find something inherently queer and "blasphemous" about bringing these digital artifacts into real life. This practice of collapsing digital and physical space draws from what Legacy Russell calls "AFK" (away from keyboard) culture in Glitch Feminism—a queer act of bringing internet artifacts into embodied, material existence.

Documentation of just part of archives of 4”x6” photos

These images eventually reappear on a larger, softer scale. Photographs printed onto artist-made quilts invite the viewer to encounter images not only visually but physically. Rather than hanging on walls, these images ask to be enveloped—allowing memory, intimacy, and care to exist as something warm, worn, and held against the body. This commitment to transformation, survival, and adaptation is central to both the queer experience and the materials I choose. Ultimately, my work insists that the body—especially the queer, un-passing body—is not something to be corrected, but something to be housed, warmed, and lived with.