Zavros Silk Onagadori Work

Here is a mock- up of the beautiful Michael Zavros silk scarf art work entitled

 The Pheonix 2011,

 which will soon be mine!

Framed floating in a perspex box....I am thinking!

Image via Grantpirrie Gallery

Michael Zavros Pops UP

A new group show at a pop up gallery 'Suite One', in 

  Sydney Australia,

 for 

Grantpirrie Gallery, will feature limited
 edition works by Michael Zavros, Todd Hunter,
  Arlo Mountford, Ben Quilty, and Hossein Valamanesh.

Michael has been working on an edition of some very beautiful silk pocket squares entitled

 'The Phoenix', which show the sacred Japanese rooster, the Onagadori.

White Onagadori Oil on Board 2006

In the words of Zavros:

The Onagadori, a Japanese breed of rooster, is a most sacred fowl:  it boasts a genetic anomaly that means it doesn't moult.  Its spectacular tail feathers grow for the life of the bird, hence its metaphorical associations with the myth of the pheonix.  The Onagadori ostensibly carries within its genetic code the secret elixir of youth. Its beauty does not wither.  Once gifted to Emperors, they are now the pursuit of ornithological purists, fanatics.  They are kept as prized animals in cages that prevent damage to their tails and are shown with the same reverence as an object of rare beauty, like a treasured ornament. 

Objects of desire, decadent and redundant, they exist purley for display.

 Such incredible beauty and sadness...an object of rarity and tragedy is the beautiful Onagadori!

Will update with images of the current limited edition silkscreens from 2011 shortly.

Image courtesy of Michael Zavros.com

More information is available from Grantpirrie Gallery

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Michael Zavros: Interiors of Beauty

I love the idea of simultaneously owning a Dale Frank painting and a Michael Zavros work all in one. Similarly, having a Bill Henson within a Zavros painting really appeals!

As a collector, the idea of ownership and consumption of these works is for me gripping. 

 An unabashed, unapologetic desire to procure these images and objects of luxury and refinement for our own homes is at once potently decadent!

  

The lioness    2010 oil on canvas

Michael Zavros is known and celebrated for his meticulous and highly trained skill in the production of his photo realist paintings, drawings and bronze sculptures. 

 His work encapsulates his fascination with objects of beauty and desire.  He celebrates and appropriates a range of iconic subject matter such as imagery of fashion, horses, the hauntingly empty interiors of Versailles, modern interiors, or the Mercedes Benz, for example.

An obsession with the allure and desire for beauty to have and to hold, in all its consumerist glory!

Photograph of Interior of home of Dale Frank from Vogue Living May/June 2006
Image used by Michael Zavros for the work below

1820's Regency leather sofa/Favela Chair/ Champion Dachshund/'Windkiedach Wiggle'/
 A Dale Frank
2008 oil on canvas

It is the longing and desire for one to surround one's self with the symbols of wealth, quality and perfection, which unapologetically give a collective shout to the world
"I've made it!"      

    

Milano Interior/MonettiEmporium/I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got 2003 oil on board

However, there is an unsettling tension lurking in Zavros's work, between the desirability of the material world and the eventual death of perfection.  Nothing lasts forever.  All that glitters is not necessarily gold!

The embracement of these beautiful and so meticulously executed photo realist images of objects of luxury by Zavros, is so wonderfully aligned with the essence of the Gold Coast, the artist's home town.  The search and celebration of more!  More beauty, more real estate, more money!

Starck/Bawden/Zavros/Nell/Starck 2008 oil on canvas

Echo 2009 oil on canvas

And yet the European style and rarefied subject matter of Zavros's work is also so curiously out of place within the Gold Coast context.  He is simultaneously part of the sophisticated global village and a product of being our very own Gold Coast boy done well!

V12 Narcissus 2009 oil on board

Mercedes M Class/Killing Me Softly 2004 oil on board

Winning is Easy 2009 Bronze

Man 2009 oil on canvas

When I look at these beautiful works by Michael Zavros, I am struck by their awesome beauty and desirability.  Although at the same time, I can't help thinking of the sentiment evoked by the iconic truism works from the 1980's of American conceptual artists Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer:

 "I Shop therefore I am"

and

 "Protect Me from What I Want"

words J Watson-Evans

The Decorator

Michael Zavros is currently showing at the Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane

 until 11th December 2010.

All images courtesy of Michael Zavros

*Photograph of Dale Frank's interior Vogue Living May/June 2006