A studio that was born not made.
Not every studio name begs for an explanation. This one does - because it's the lifelong struggle of connecting and reconnecting.
fives
The name as authentic as the work itself. Not a brand, but a birthplace.
Five years. Growing up, CZ worked at his hometown paint store; stocking shelves, mixing colors, learning an intimacy with paint hue and contrast that he literally wore, splashed and spilled. Not as a hobby. As a job.
Five gallons. Seventy pounds per bucket, hauled for local contractors across those same five years. Lugging that kind of mass transformed paint into something physical, something earned.
Five movements. The number of times, five, CZ learned to walk. First as a toddler, then four more times during rehabilitation from the various flares of his Multiple Sclerosis.
Five loaves. With a personal ethic that believes that we're only stewards who must give back what we can. Even meager amounts become a vector for greater.
These fives are the foundation of everything here.
John Czwartacki - CZ to the people who know him - spent more than three decades at the highest levels of American public life: Press Secretary to the Senate Majority Leader, Communications Director at the White House's Office of Management and Budget, and more recently, founder of Survivors for Solutions. The patient advocacy organization built out of sincere gratitude for the biomedical innovation that gave him the opportunity to live his best life.
When Multiple Sclerosis took away his ability to walk in 2020, the same ataxia began affecting his vocal cords.
For a man whose entire career had been built as a "communicator" this wound cut deep. But Providence had something else in mind.
Within a few years of his new symptom, this "weakness" became a window to a new expression. With no formal training, CZ picked up a brush and let the canvas be his tutor. Practice became prolific, unearthing his physical connection to paint and color that was patiently waiting for this moment.
A practicing Catholic and late-career artist, John is deeply moved by the mid-century New York Jewish pioneers who heard in the pathos of Scripture and ancient mythology something universally human. They understood that paint, scale, and color could carry what language alone could not. His work continues that lineage: abstract expressionist and color field paintings that are immersive, honest… and urgent.
A deliberate rejection of the irony, sarcasm, and cynicism that saturate so much of today's culture in favor of something more demanding, and more generous.
The physicality of moving paint, the raw honesty earned through a lifetime of reinvention and resilience.
This is what Fives Studio is. A life lived with disease, sustained by faith, built and rebuilt.