This week, Lewis Swan headed over to Zach Zono’s studio in London Fields to talk about the use of colour, nostalgic memories, South Africa, inspiration and more. He also took some pretty cool snaps he wanted to share with gowithYamo. 

‍LEWIS SWAN: Would you like to start by introducing yourself? 

‍ZACH ZONO: Hey, I’m Zach Zono, and I’m a painter based in London from South Africa. 

‍LS: Funnily enough, we have crossed paths before. Last year, we were both at the Barbican to see Whiplash in concert, conducted by the great Justin Hurwitz. I remember seeing you walk past and thinking, “I know who that is!” but couldn’t quite put my finger on why. Small world. 

‍ZZ: That’s amazing! London is such a small world, I love it. The Barbican always feels like one of those places where worlds overlap. I remember that night, the energy of Whiplash live was such a fun experience.

‍LS: So, anyone who knows me knows how obsessed I am with the use of colour, and how and why colour is utilised to stimulate different emotions and experiences through art. What role does colour play within your work?  ‍

ZZ: For me, colour, it’s very intuitive whilst painting, but I’m very drawn to warmth, to sunsets and to the vibrancy of growing up in South Africa. I implement that into my paintings, even if it may be subconscious at times, or applied by me putting the effort into putting it on, but I try to create colours that are offbeat, that bounce upon each other,  and colours that you may not necessarily associate together, especially as it is figurative abstraction. I’m not trying to make the marks obvious, so I'm not trying to use blues and greens to showcase oceans and trees; I’m trying to use offbeat colours that add vibrancy and movement to the painting. I want the paint to feel like it is falling off the painting. I want it to feel alive, and by using bright and offbeat colours, I think I’m able to achieve that. 

‍LS: I’ve always noticed the use of reds, pinks and purples throughout your paintings. Why are you drawn to these colours? 

‍ZZ: Yeah, red was… well, probably still is one of my favourite colours to use whilst painting. I think the contrast between red really works well with other colours. I also think the meaning behind the use of red can be vastly tragic, but at the same time showcase so much love. It can mean so many things to so many different people, and I really like to use that within my work. I guess, it really is a homage to growing up in South Africa, with the vibrancy of the sunsets, being around the ocean and the way the sun hits the water and the mountains, and I really think that it reflects my memories. I’ve tried to use red more as a secondary colour in this collection of works rather than at the forefront, and I’m trying to use it more as a complementary colour to the other colours, to let them shine through a bit more now, but I think I’ll always be drawn to warm colours. 

‍LS: I’m a big fan of titles. I love when something isn’t on the nose, you know? I think there’s an art to titling that we have somewhat lost with all these ‘untitled’ works and titles that describe the works in a detailed and complete way. I think artists such as The Beatles or even Vegyn do this in such a magical way that makes you want to listen to the art, in this case, the music they’ve created, to find out why it’s titled in such a unique way, and what the connection is between the title and the piece itself. I can see that you’re on the same page with titles, and I love how you title your work, so I’m intrigued to find out what your work-titling process consists of. 

‍ZZ: I think titles are definitely part of the painting; it’s a bit of a lyrical story to go as a combination with the actual work. Titles for me are phrases I hear from people, especially from growing up in South Africa, where people might use a different dialect to say something. For example, if you’re running late in Cape Town, you’ll say “I’ll see you soon-soon”, which could mean 10 minutes, it could mean an hour, it could mean three hours, but you know that it is that day. They might even say “I’ll see you now-now”. There’s a lot of repetition in the phrases, and I connect them to a painting, not to even give them meaning, but to give them more of a lyrical aspect to the movement of the work, especially the movement of the brush or the movement of the paint. I think this gives the title a bit more of a lyrical bounce and a bit more of a phrase you might not necessarily have heard before or a phrasing you may not have heard before. It really adds another element to the work, and it helps you understand the composition and the memory going into the painting, and most importantly, it's fun coming up with the titles. 

‍LS: What inspires you to create? 

‍ZZ: I’m inspired by past experiences, by the way of life, by living, my own memories and the way I’ve travelled through this world, and I think that reflects in my work. I’m not necessarily inspired by the things I see or hear, but it’s a bit intuitive, or maybe it might even be subconsciously inspired by something I saw that day, but for me, it’s being in the studio, using the gravity of the studio, being present with the work. I’m letting the way the shadows come through the window, the way gravity might pull the paint, the way the paintwork might be situated on the walls, I think all of these elements add to inspiration, they add to the spontaneity of the work, but also in a controlled environment you’re able to navigate through that with your internal inspiration, that is intuitively coming out whilst you’re painting. 

LS: You’ve mentioned a few times that coming from South Africa has inspired the colours you choose and the actual way you create. Do you feel as if you need to travel back to South Africa to top up and gather new experiences, or do you think the nostalgic memories of South Africa bring a specific element to the paintings that can’t be sought out or re-experienced again? 

ZZ: I think a bit of both. I definitely need to travel and go back home to re-experience the older memories, to experience a new perspective and a new way of life. For me, it’s a matter of maturing: the older I get, the more I paint, and the more I practise art and the more my artistic practice expands and develops, I think, implements the work,  and the repetition of performing the act of painting, thinking back at my hometown, and thinking back on those memories keeps re-applying itself throughout my work. I definitely think that painting is a way of seeing. It’s a way of me phrasing a period of my life on a canvas, and I have to experience life, and I have to do things to be able to expand and for that to improve. I try to go back at least twice a year to regain another experience of what it is like to be there. 

LS: Is there a moment in your practise, maybe in the form of the actual painting itself, a colour choice or a specific brush mark that symbolises or showcases the switch between South Africa to London? 

ZZ: I think the more I paint and the more confident I got with painting the loser my grip got. So if you look at older works from maybe five years ago they’re very stagnant, they’re very analytical, they’re very planned. The paintings now, they’re very lose, very free and they’re very open to me as a person and me as an artist. I think that is because of the loosening of the grip, the loosening of the hand, and that reflects in the work and that reflects in me growing up, getting older, maturing and seeing the way the world is shifting and that all impacts the work, but It’s subconscious and I guess i’m not really thinking about it, but if i look back at paintings from five years ago and paintings now I can really reflect on it. 

‍LS: So what do you have coming up that you’d like us to keep an eye out for?

ZZ: I have a solo exhibition opening up on the 17th January called ‘THE GRAVITY OF A DREAM’ with THE TAGLI at Fred Levine in Bruton, Somerset, we’re collaborating on the show together. It was such a great experience to paint the new pieces for the show. I’ve loosened the grip and I’ve expanded on how the way paint hits the canvas, the way the paint drips and using the gravity of the studio to manipulate the paint within the works. That of course, goes to the title of the show, and you can really see it when you’re looking around at all of the paintings and how the paint is squirted, sprayed, slapped on, the way the paintings are flipped around and the way the paint is dripping off in different directions. It really reflects my moment in time and how I created the work and how I’d like them to be seen by people. 

Make sure to keep an eye out for Zono’s exhibition opening on the 17th January in Bruton, Somerset:  THE TAGLI × Fred Levine present THE GRAVITY OF A DREAM - a new solo exhibition by Zach Zono.

Photography by Lewis Swan.