Michael Zavros: Look Back

By Hamish Sawyer

Ferragamo, 2000 oil on board 20.4 x 14.8 cm

Curator and writer Hamish Sawyer reflects on some of the defining works from Michael Zavros’ career.

Michael Zavros first gained attention with his series of intimately scaled, photo-realist paintings of luxury male fashion. Ferragamo was shown as part of Primavera at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 2000.

The Italian fashion house’s signature loafers are represented in their perfect showroom state, mirroring the technical precision of Zavros’ rendering of them. If anything, the painting is more perfect than the objects it depicts.

Miniature paintings were popular with European royalty during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Prohibitively expensive, they were the luxury goods of their time. Zavros has returned to the miniature format regularly over the past two decades.

Spring / Fall 11, 2004 oil on canvas 210 x 167 cm

Zavros was a champion show jumper as a teenager and thoroughbreds have appeared throughout his oeuvre.

Spring / Fall 11 is from a series of falling horse paintings; the animal’s sleek coat and musculature are captured in exacting detail against a white background. In this way, Zavros draws equivalence between the models and luxury goods of earlier works and his equestrian subjects. The work’s title also resonates with the artist’s ongoing interest in fashion.

Spring / Fall 11 was made during Zavros’ NSW Ministry for the Arts’ residency at The Gunnery, Sydney and was the recipient of the MCA Primavera Collex Award in 2004.

The New Round Room, 2012 oil on canvas 210 x 167 cm Courtesy: AGNSW collection

Zavros received the inaugural Bulgari Art Award in 2012 for The New Round Room, acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) as part of the prize.

The large-scale oil on canvas is a meticulous recreation of a vestibule in Grand Trianon, a palace built by Louis XIV on the grounds of Versailles between 1670-72. The painting’s subject matter reflects Zavros’ interest in the cultural achievements of the French aristocracy and Ancien Régime.

Juxtaposed against the ornate interior architecture is a stainless steel weight lifting bench, a symbol of contemporary desire and narcissism. In The New Round Room Zavros contrasts society’s current obsession with attaining physical perfection against the historical pursuit of architectural and artistic endeavours.

Bad Dad, 2013 oil on canvas 110 x 150 cm Courtesy: QAGOMA

One of the defining images of Zavros’ practice, Bad Dad portrays the artist floating on an inflatable pool toy. His body bronzed and toned, Zavros stares intently at his reflection in the water, referencing the Greek myth of Narcissus. The ambiguous tone of the painting is amplified by its tongue-in-cheek title.

Reflecting on the superficiality of our selfie-obsessed culture, Bad Dad and QAGOMA collection acknowledges both Zavros’ earlier painting V12 Narcissus 2009 (AGNSW collection), as well as art historical precedents from Caravaggio to Salvador Dali that have engaged with the Greek myth’s cautionary tale of male vanity and self love.

Bad Dad is held in the collection of the Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Brisbane, where it is is part of their permanent Australian Art display.

Amore, 2018 oil on canvas 170 x 115 cm

Amore is the most recent work in an ongoing series of portraits depicting the artist’s eldest daughter, Phoebe. Zavros’ children are important subjects in his work and the artist won the prestigious Moran Prize in 2010 for his haunting Phoebe is Dead/McQueen.

In Amore (Italian for love), Phoebe is pictured on the cusp of adolescence, her hair and make up done in the exaggerated way of a child trying to look older than they are. There is a distinct retro aesthetic to the image; Zavros took inspiration from a magazine story and has described the look as ‘a bit Mid-West soapie’.

Phoebe holds the viewer’s gaze with a studied insouciance that also hints at her vulnerability, demonstrating Zavros’ personal connection with his subject as well as the artist’s considerable technical skill.

Dad likes Summer, 2020 lightjet print 172.7 x 122 cm Edition of 3 plus 2 artist’s proofs

Zavros’ paintings have an unavoidable relationship to photography therefore it was a natural progression for the artist to begin working directly with the medium.

For his latest body of work, Zavros has photographed a life-size mannequin of himself (‘a more perfect version of me’) in a series of magazine-style images. The photographs feature the mannequin at home with Zavros’ vintage red Mercedes-Benz and thoroughbred horse; and at the beach with the artist’s children. The photographs mimic Zavros’ made-for-Instagram lifestyle, collapsing the boundaries between art and life.

Zavros debuted his new images in the July 2020 issue of The Australian newspaper’s Wish magazine, underlining their relationship to fashion and lifestyle photography. The series will be shown as part of A Guy Like Me, the artist’s first exhibition with Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney in October, 2020.