PHOTOGRAPH LEFT BY FRANKIE ZOMBIE, RIGHT PHOTOGRAPH BY ATOM BLK MODELED BY CHARENE DAVIS
blvd. | artists
Bold rebirth ARTIST FRANKIE ZOMBIE GIVES NEW LIFE TO EVERYDAY OBJECTS.
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by Vanessa Infanzon
hen visual artist Frankie Zombie was hounded by a longtime friend to paint a Yamaha piano, he resisted. He’d painted on jackets, shoes and other nontraditional canvases, but he wasn’t sure how a musical instrument — especially something as large as a piano — would work. Zombie was disillusioned with the music industry; he’d spent three years in Los Angeles playing piano and producing for John Legend and Pharrell Williams. He returned to his home in Spartanburg, S.C., depressed. His friend’s insistence got Zombie thinking about how visual art could reconnect him to music. “That piano started it,” remembers Zombie, 32, who currently lives in Charlotte. “Before painting [it], I started to play. I felt that happiness and calmness come back. I told myself, this is my rebirth and my reconnection — not to music, but to visual art.” Painting gives Zombie the purpose he’s been seeking. “I know how to speak to people through art,” he explains. “I couldn’t really speak to people through music.” Anything is a canvas, Zombie says. A self-taught artist, he’s made his career by painting ceilings and walls, guitars and vehicles. He wants to inspire youth to consider art and entrepreneurship. “Growing up, I was told not to paint on anything. I was told to keep everything neat,” he says. “My focus each and every day is to show youth that there are so many different things to consider as a canvas.”
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