Artist Detail

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Zach Barfuss

Visual Artist: Paintings

About the artist:

Zach Barfuss is a 31 year old, 3rd generation artist based in Houston, TX. Zach has worked in the Oil and Gas Industry selling software for the past 7 years and paints on the side of his full time job. It was obvious from an early age that Zach had inherited his grandfather and father's creative gene and strong work ethic. From as early as 5 years old in kindergarden, it became clear that Zach had talent when his Art piece was chosen among 3 drawings in the entire school at St. Michael's Catholic Church (K-8th grade) to be displayed in the Neiman Marcus Austrian Art show. The judges said that Zach's Art piece was chosen due to his "use of space" and the "content of his drawing" was more advanced than other children in his age group. Throughout middle school and highschool, Zach spent most of his time and energy focusing on sports. During school, he would write his name over and over in his school books trying to make each letter perfect and then moved into drawing different styles of Nike shoes and boat designs as early as 5th grade. He also took a calligraphy class in 6th grade where he started to realize that his cursive and calligraphy handwriting skills stood out more than his peers. In Zach's junior year at St. Thomas Highschool, he took his first Art class in 6 years and ended up winning the Art award at the age of 16. Heading into college, Zach struggled quite a bit with academics throughout his life and his parents were convinced that he had a learning disability and they wanted to see if he had Attention Deficit Disorder to determine if he needed special treatment and medication going into my first year of college. Zach met with a psychiatrist who conducted a psychological evaluation and conducted many different tests over different subject matters and graded Zach on what grade level he was at for the various subjects. In her write up evaluation, the psychiatrist concluded that Zach did have Attention Deficit Disorder and also made the statement, "If there is any thought or question about what Zach should study in college or do for a living, I strongly recommend that he focus on the Arts. His scores are off the charts." Zach went on to college where he graduated from Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University) with a major in Mass Communications - Advertisting and a minor in Art. 4 years passed after college without picking up a paint brush and Zach started to pick up painting again out of boredom in 2007. He started selling one painting after another and after recieving numerous compliments and encouragement from friends and family to keep painting, he started to paint more and more and has now sold over 100 paintings in the past 3 years. Zach says, "I never thought at this stage in my life I'd be painting. I never thought at this stage in my life everyone would actually like my paintings and want to actually pay money for them. I never thought at this stage in my life I'd actually have a website showcasing my work. It's all very surreal to me, happened very fast and I feel very blessed and fortunate to be in the position I'm in at the moment and I wouldn't change one thing about it. It can be overwhelming at times, but the encouragement and kind words that I recieve about my Art on a daily basis from friends, family and even strangers, really keeps me focused and motivated to keep moving forward with my paintings. I honestly feel that I have a lot to learn and I'm just scratching the surface of my artistic talent. It will be interesting to see how I develop over the next 15-20 years." Zach goes on to say, "I've realized that sometimes you can spend your entire life trying to chase a dream and sometimes you have to open your eyes, look around, and realize that maybe your dream is chasing you. It's up to you to recognize what you're good at and to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to you whether you are ready to take the plunge or not. Art has never been a top priority in my life or something I've really wanted to do to be perfectly honest, but when you hear you are good at something enough times over the course of your life, you eventually start to listen." Zach finally listened....