Exhibitions

Michael Zavros | Great White

14.06 - 13.07

Great White, a unique and long-awaited solo exhibition by Michael Zavros, marks his return to Melbourne after a decade. This exhibition is a testament to his mastery of aspiration, autobiography, and juxtaposition, which he deftly explores across various mediums such as painting, photography, and sculpture. Alongside new works the show will also include a pair of historic works from Zavros’ personal collection. Together, these pieces form a conceptually rich tapestry of references, inviting viewers to delve into a narrative that weaves between contrasting elements.

Common contemporary themes of ambition, beauty, and decadence are contextualised and countered by Zavros’ autobiographical tone, which sits within the conceptual currents of absurdity, appropriation, identity, and history. These concerns are depicted within his customary spectacular interiors and whimsical landscapes or housed within playful still lifes. Yet, each work, with its layers of meaning, leave more questions than answers. Zavros’ work prompts viewers to reflect on their interests, existence and assumptions, stirring emotions and building tensions as they gaze.

Two paintings talk about the layered approach and underpinning ambiguity of Zavros’ practice: the title work and The New BelvedereGreat White comes with a slew of motifs, meanings and metaphors, for instance: do the two glistening white elephant tusks form an arch like that of a shark piercing the water’s surface? Does this reference to an elephant and the title suggest the metaphor of a “white elephant”, a possession challenging to dispose of and whose costly maintenance outweighs its use value? Similarly, the historical figure of the “great white hunter”, a term used to describe affluent white European hunters crossing Africa’s plains, a history that continues to highlight the racial and colonist aspects of game hunting. The trophies they hunted would often be turned into taxidermy, an art form Zavros has a keen interest in, collecting a number and producing paintings contextualising these trophies often alongside other trophies of aspiration in Zavros’ world: art, desirable furniture, clothing and cars, and the role of the “trophy child” or “trophy dad”. The work references a photograph by the late Peter Beard, the handsome American socialite photographer and hunter who settled in Africa documenting the last of the Big Game.

It could be all or none of these, or more. If it were to touch on some of the elements above, it is a fair representation of Michael Zavros, the son of Greek immigrants, whose identity is complex — like the contentious Greek marble he is seen viewing in his At the British Museum self-portrait. Michael Zavros the artist, whose primary role in life outside his dedication to his family is that of his practice, which could be said is a living manifestation of the “white elephant” — a costly endeavour, full of endless questions concerning its value (social and otherwise), reasoning and emotional maintenance? And, of course, representative of the love of his family — here his daughter Phoebe — seated on the marble checkerboard floor in the house he has built for his family. But all these references also place Zavros in a context of power and representation, both under the skin of and boldly demonstrated in his works with their scenes of beauty and desire. At play here is an underpinning of the slowly declining power attributed to the white man, who still acts as a predator but is also at threat of extinction. This idea of the collapse of western civilisation is implied too in the aforementioned miniature painting, At the British Museum, which alludes to discussions around provenance and repatriation, a contesting of culture and how the life and narrative of an object continues and changes when placed (or forced) into new contexts.

The New Belvedere, the fourth picture in a series, is fused with this layering and abstruse articulation. Ripe with Zavros’ quintessential themes of mythologies, aspiration, beauty, decadence and narcissism, this hyper-aestheticized painting is a fusion of the 18th-century ornamental building, or “folly” — The Belvedere, found in The English Gardens of Versailles — a recurring theme and landscape in Zavros’ work— with a mirror finished weight-lifting bench planted on the grass at the front of the scene. A surreal juxtaposition and composition, this work’s depiction of a building with no practical purpose, aside from its beauty, calls back this idea of the white elephant. The painting evokes the 2006 film Children of Men, in which the protagonist encounters Michelangelo’s David and Picasso’s Guernica in the home of a powerful man; here, Versailles might be the playground for a megalomaniac, in which the gardens form a private gym, a folly within a folly, a nihilistic hedonism.

The nihilism of Zavros’ work exists with a light touch, yet the hedonism is ripe, but its presence unfolds between several references and interpretations. He is the master of juxtapositions, whose desire is to be precisely representational, but in this realism also calls into question the “reality” of things.

Michael Zavros | Great White | STARKWHITE
Exhibitions

Current

Past

Billy Apple® | Progressives and Other Self-Portraits

31.08 - 12.10

Marti Friedlander | Starting Point for a Complicated Story

12.07 - 24.08

John Reynolds | Some Greater Plan (for Claire)

04.06 - 06.07

Fiona Pardington | Te taha o te rangi

16.04 - 25.05

Gordon Walters | History

09.02 - 31.03

Whitney Bedford, Bill Henson, Ani O'Neill, Jonny Niesche, and Fiona Pardington | Sampler 2024

09.02 - 31.03

Jamie Te Heuheu | Quiet Thoughts and Quiet Dreams

23.11.23 - 13.01.24

Bill Henson | The Liquid Night

23.11.23 - 31.01.24

Clinton Watkins | Depth of Field

20.10.23 - 19.11.23

Bonco | Star Stare Start

20.10.23 - 19.11.23

Gordon Walters by Francis Pound | Book Launch

14.09.23

Curated by Jonny Niesche | Ümwelt

01.09.23 - 07.10.23

Richard Maloy | Raw

27.07.23 - 27.08.23

Petra Cortright | micro lemon diamond realm

07.07.23 - 26.08.23

Jonny Niesche | You say sfumato, I say sfumato

12.05.23 - 27.06.23

Billy Apple® | Divine Proportion

23.02.23 - 08.04.23

Gerold Miller, Gordon Walters | Miller meets Walters

08.12.23 - 31.01.23

FuckCancer_DontDelayFun | Blind Auction

27.10.22 - 05.11.22

John Reynolds | APOCALYPSEoCLOCK

21.10.22 - 01.12.22

Whitney Bedford | Imaginary

30.08.22 - 15.10.22

Seung Yul Oh | Huggong-Monologue

09.07.22 - 20.08.22

Gerold Miller

01.06.22 - 02.07.22

Bill Henson | Selected Works

30.04.22 - 29.05.22

Layla Rudneva-Mckay | I Roll

15.02.22 - 19.03.22

Fiona Pardington | Tarota

16.11.21 – 18.12.21

Fiona Pardington | Tarota Preview

05.10.21 – 07.10.21

Jan van der Ploeg | The Other Window

17.08.21 – 12.10.21

Laith McGregor | Second Wind

03.07.21 – 07.08.21

Richard Maloy | Maternal Routine

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Bill Henson | 1985-2021

21.05.21 - 19.06.21

Martin Basher | Birds of Paradise

13.04.21 - 14.05.21

Will Cooke | Every Wall Is A Door

15.01.21 - 13.02.21

Jonny Niesche | Poikilos

17.11.20 - 22.12.20

Gemma Smith | Thin Air

06.10.20 - 07.11.20

Whitney Bedford, Petra Cortright, Kirsten Everberg, Judy Ledgerwood | Slippery Painting

01.09.20 - 03.10.20

Jin Jiangbo, John Reynolds | Performative Geographies

14.07.20 - 15.08.20

Group Show | Sampler 2020

14.05.20 - 06.06.20

Gordon Walters | From the Archive

05.02.20 - 07.03.20

Richard Maloy | Studio: Space & Time

28.01.20 - 01.02.20

Rebecca Baumann | New Work

27.11.19 - 21.12.19

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22.10.19 - 16.11.19

John Reynolds | The Art of Wine

14.10.19

Billy Apple® and Tāme Iti | Flagged

08.10.19 - 12.10.19

Clinton Watkins | binary

19.09.19 - 03.11.19

Yuk King Tan | Crisis of the Ordinary

21.08.19 - 14.09.19

Group Show | Sampler 2019

23.07.19 - 15.08.19

Fiona Pardington | TIKI: Orphans of Māoriland

12.06.19 - 11.07.19

Laith McGregor | AM/PM/AM

09.05.19 - 08.06.19

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11.04.19 - 05.05.19

Ani O'Neill | Classic Hits

14.03.19 - 10.04.19

Alicia Frankovich | Microchimerism

08.02.19 - 06.03.19

Martin Basher | One Week Stand

24.01.19 - 02.02.19

The Estate of L.Budd_et al.

11.12.18 - 22.12.18, 02.01.19 - 12.01.19

Gavin Hipkins | Block Units

14.11.18 - 08.12.18

John Stezaker | Collages

09.10.18 - 03.11.18

Grant Stevens | The Mountain and the Waterfalls

01.09.18 - 29.09.18

Whitney Bedford | Bohemia

31.07.18 - 24.08.18

Seung Yul Oh | Horizontal Loop

26.06.18 - 28.07.18

Gordon Walters | From the Walters Estate

29.05.18 - 16.06.18

Group Show | Sampler 2018

17.04.18 - 26.05.18

Alicia Frankovich, Ani O’Neill, The Estate of L Budd, et al. | 125

13.03.18 - 07.04.18

Len Lye | Love Springs Eternal

07.02.18 - 07.03.18

Richard Maloy | Things I have Seen

22.12.17

Michael Zavros | The Silver Fox

17.11.17 - 16.12.17

John Reynolds | RocksInTheSky...

17.11.17 - 24.12.17

Martin Basher | Devil at the Gates of Heaven

10.10.17 - 04.11.17

Daniel von Sturmer | Luminous Figures

02.09.17 - 30.09.17

Martin Basher | Hawaiian Tropic

01.08.17 - 26.08.17

Fiona Pardington | Nabokov's Blues: The Charmed Circle

23.06.17 - 23.07.17

John Reynolds | FrenchBayDarkly…

17.05.17 - 17.06.17

Group Show | On the Grounds

02.03.17 - 08.04.17

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08.02.17 - 04.03.17

Gavin Hipkins, Jin Jiangbo, Danie Mellor | Beyond Landscape

17.11.16 - 17.12.16

Laith McGregor | Swallow the Sun

01.10.16 - 12.11.16

Matt Henry | Analogues

19.09.16 - 14.10.16

John Reynolds | WalkWithMe...

30.08.16 - 24.09.16

Daniel Crooks | Vanishing Point

03.08.16 - 27.18.16

Gavin Hipkins, Richard Maloy, Daniel von Sturmer | Material Candour

05.07.16 - 22.07.16

Layla Rudneva-Mackay | Running Towards Water

07.06.16 - 08.07.16

Fiona Pardington | 100% Unicorn

24.05.16 - 25.06.16

Clinton Watkins | lowercase

19.04.16 - 18.05.16

Whitney Bedford 2016 | Lost and Found

15.03.16 - 14.04.16

Fiona Clark | For Pink Pussycat Club as part of THE BILL

20.02.16 - 22.04.16

Alicia Frankovich | The Female has Undergone Several Manifestations

06.02.16 - 05.03.16

Fiona Pardington | The Popular Recreator

11.12.15 - 23.12.15

Gavin Hipkins | Block Paintings

04.11.15 - 05.12.15

Gordon Walters | Gouaches and a Painting from the 1950s

21.09.15 - 24.10.15

Fiona Pardington | Childish Things

12.08.15 - 19.09.15

Rebecca Baumann, Brendan Van Hek, Alicia Frankovich, Len Lye, László Moholy-Nagy and Grant Stevens | In Motion

10.07.15 - 08.08.15

Grant Stevens | Hold Together, Fall Apart

07.07.15 - 02.08.15

Laith McGregor | Somewhere Anywhere

02.06.15 - 04.07.15

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01.05.15 - 30.05.15

Martin Basher | Jizzy Velvet

03.02.15 - 14.03.15

John Reynolds | BLUTOPIA

19.12.14

Seung Yul Oh | memmem

31.10.14 - 06.12.14

Gavin Hipkins | Erewhon

31.10.14 - 29.11.14

Rebecca Baumann | Once More With Feeling

19.09.14 - 18.10.14

Michael Zavros | Bad Dad

02.06.14 - 28.06.14

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05.05.14 - 10.05.14

Jin Jiangbo, Stella Brennan, Billy Apple, Trenton Garratt, Seung Yul Oh, John Reynolds, Layla Rudneva-Mackay, Jim Speers, Yuk King Tan and Wang Dawei | SIGNALS

08.08.14 - 13.09.14

Layla Rudneva-Mackay | Blue Squares, Purple Pairs

17.03.14 - 12.04.14

Curated by Martin Basher | Lovers

06.02.14 - 06.03.14

Glen Hayward | I don't want you to worry about me

06.12.13 - 31.01.14

Matt Henry | High Fidelity

16.11.13 - 14.12.13

Li Xiaofei | Assembly Line - Entrance

03.10.13 - 26.10.13

Richard Maloy | All the things I did

04.09.13 - 30.09.13

John Reynolds | Vagabondage

22.08.13 - 21.09.13

Clinton Watkins | Frequency Colour

25.07.13 - 16.08.13

Curated by Robert Leonard | BAZINGA!

11.05.13 - 08.06.13

Whitney Bedford | This for That

09.04.13 - 04.05.13

Jin Jiangbo | Rules of Nature

08.03.13 - 04.04.13

Martin Basher | Solo Exhibition

05.02.2013 - 02.03.13

Ross Manning | Field Emissions

29.11.12 - 22.12.12, 15.01.13 - 22.01.13

Seung Yul Oh | HUGGONG

23.10.12 - 17.11.12

Jae Hoon Lee | Antarctic Fever

18.09.12 - 13.10.12

Curated by Brian Butler | Greetings from Los Angeles: Eight Artists

10.07.12 - 06.08.12