This story is part of the December 6 edition of Good Weekend magazine. See all stories.<\/a><\/p>\n The first thing you see when you enter artist Michael Zavros\u2019s latest exhibition at Dunedin\u2019s Public Art Gallery \u2013 right under his name \u2013 is a stuffed peacock. Proud. Beautiful. Preserved for all to gaze upon. But it\u2019s a little disconcerting when beyond it \u2013 in an exhibition titled Meet the Zavros\u2019s \u2013 are the portraits and self-portraits you might expect in such a show, only with the added, unnerving presence of a mannequin of Zavros himself in a series of carefully staged photos: taken by the \u201creal\u201d Zavros of the \u201cpretend\u201d Zavros with his own children.<\/p>\n In a video tour of the exhibition, Zavros explains the congruence. For one thing, he hasn\u2019t suddenly taken up taxidermy \u2013 the peacock is a borrowed object from the gallery \u2013 and for another, it fits alongside his 3D-printed likeness into the main theme of this exhibition: the idea of the collectable trophy.<\/p>\n Lucy Hammonds, co-curator with Lauren Gutsell of this six-month showcase, sees Zavros\u2019s first major exhibition in New Zealand as a way of introducing audiences to some of these central tensions in his work. \u201cYou can look at the peacock in different ways,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a whimsical gesture sitting at the entrance, but it also has a lot of encoded meaning, particularly a sense of male vanity and showing off. It was also a symbol of immortality in some ancient cultures, based on the belief its flesh didn\u2019t decay after death.\u201d<\/p>\n Combine this with the idea that the \u201ceyes\u201d on the tail of the bird represent heaven and the yearly shedding of its feathers symbolises rebirth, renewal and the cycle of life and, she adds: \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more to be yielded from the peacock than you might first imagine, which is always part of the beauty of Michael\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n As part of his month-long residency at the gallery, Zavros, 51, has also created a new work, a pair of somewhat disturbing trompe-l\u2019oeil paintings of two of his children\u2019s heads. Olympia, 18, his second-eldest daughter, and Leo, 14, his son, hang limply from the wall, almost, dare I say it, as if they\u2019ve been beheaded. Add to that the portrait of his then five-year-old daughter, Phoebe (now 20) in Phoebe is Dead\/McQueen \u2013 which won him the highly coveted Moran Portrait prize in 2010<\/a> \u2013 not to mention his most recent exhibition at Philip Bacon Galleries in Brisbane entitled Things Fall Apart \u2013 and you could be forgiven for thinking that death and endings have been preying on the artist\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n In his recent works, dying and decay is portrayed in numerous ways, for example, on a massive canvas as an Ionic column washed up on a beach against a cerulean blue sky, or as a skull sitting atop a vase with cascading grapes reminiscent of Louis XIV\u2019s massive wigs (The Sunking), or as a poignant small oil painting of Tina, the family\u2019s dead duck, balanced on a silver compote, a vase with autumnal leaves surrounding her. \u201cShe died of a leg infection,\u201d Zavros says. \u201cWe noticed she had a cut on her leg, and a slight swelling, and we took her to the vet who put her on antibiotics. She seemed to get better, and then I went out one morning to feed the ducks, and she was dead.\u201d<\/p>\n Zavros\u2019s animal menagerie is important to him, and even as we chat in the family\u2019s whitewashed, high-ceilinged, villa-style home on the outskirts of Brisbane the day before he leaves for New Zealand, a two-day-old gosling (it has since been named Sauron by Leo, who names all the family\u2019s ducks and geese) squawks from inside a cardboard box, where it has everything it needs to keep it comfy. \u201cIt was born with slightly wonky legs,\u201d Zavros tells me. \u201cWe\u2019ve been keeping it inside to see if its legs will start to work properly.\u201d He pops the little fluff-ball on the ground, and it tumbles over a few times before determinedly straightening itself up and following its new daddy into the kitchen. He smiles with pleasure. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n But the problem with being an animal owner is, of course, that there are deaths, and the more animals, the more deaths. (Even as I wrote this story, while Zavros was away, Juno, the family cat, a beautiful Burmese, was run over and died.) On a larger scale, perhaps the problem with life is death, and the last few years has seen a lot of loss, two major ones being the death of his wife Alison Kubler\u2019s father, and having to put to sleep Olympia\u2019s beloved horse, Bono, a big old grey warmblood bought for his daughter when she showed no signs of growing out of the passion-for-horses phase.<\/p>\n \u201cI found Bono\u2019s death particularly hard to come to terms with,\u201d Zavros says. \u201cHe had massive tumours in his neck, and I worried we kept him going too long, but also, I realised, as I stayed in this huge grief around losing him, that when Olympia got Bono and I bought myself Voss, a young warmblood, I\u2019d created a circle, and come right back to the horse life I\u2019d had to make a choice to leave behind when I went to art school. With Bono\u2019s death, and Olympia in her last year of school, I was losing it all again, and within that loss, there were also echoes of my parents\u2019 separation, and how that was the end of the horses.\u201d<\/p>\n In the days of Zavros\u2019s childhood, growing up in the Gold Coast hinterland with his four sisters, owning horses wasn\u2019t as expensive as it is now. \u201cMy parents were both schoolteachers, and we didn\u2019t have a lot of spare money,\u201d Zavros says, \u201cbut they bought my sister a Shetland pony when I was about five, and that was it \u2013 horses became an all-consuming passion.\u201d<\/p>\n Zavros competed in state teams for showjumping and eventing, and later, when his parents separated, got himself a job working at the Gold Coast Turf Club, where he became clerk of the course, a job which inevitably involved the occasional euthanasia of a racehorse on the track, the experience of which found its way into what remains for me his most poignant series of works \u2013 stark paintings of horses tumbling through space.<\/p>\n The experience of growing up and working on the Gold Coast with an Irish mother and a Greek Cypriot father who was drawn to luxury \u2013 most specifically to the idea of owning a Mercedes \u2013 but could not afford it, created, it would seem, the constant allusions in Zavros\u2019s work to aspiration, narcissism, glamour and beauty, running in tandem with a continuing existential crisis, and the question \u2013 what is it all for? \u2013 or more personally perhaps, in Zavros\u2019s case, what is he for?<\/p>\n The breakdown of Zavros\u2019s 30-year marriage to his wife Alison Kubler has definitely been a painful one. But despite the separation 18 months ago, the couple continue to live in the same house. The day before the New Zealand trip, Zavros is more concerned about keeping things together than things falling apart, worrying that his garden would suffer in his absence.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got green fingers,\u201d he says, \u201cbut big gardens need careful watering, not too much water and not too little, and Alison will just spray things.\u201d It seems an oddly domestic concern, given the separation, but then, as Zavros points out, life goes on. \u201cWe decided for the sake of the children that we would try to keep things stable,\u201d he says. \u201cI think it\u2019s something in both of us to just be stoic and get on with things.\u201d<\/p>\n Kubler, 52, has her own stellar career in the arts as editor-in-chief of Vault magazine, and as a principal of Renshaw & Kubler art consultants, and for the past three decades Team Zavros has been a tight unit, particularly as parents to their three children. Yet no matter how stoic they are, I suggest, it can\u2019t be easy for either of them or the children, making the transition from married to separated under the same roof?<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d admits Zavros. \u201cIt\u2019s been difficult. How could it not be when we\u2019ve had such a rich life together for 32 years? We\u2019ve been in a relationship since I was 19 and Alison was 20. Our lives have been \u2013 and in many ways still are \u2013 bound up in our home and family.\u201d<\/p>\n The title for the Brisbane exhibition \u2013 Things Fall Apart \u2013 came to Zavros not from the W. B. Yeats poem but when Olympia brought home from school a novel of that name by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, published in 1958. He remembers his light-bulb moment around the title vividly.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was during the cyclone [Alfred] in March, and Olympia was talking about how much she loved the book,\u201d he explains. \u201cI also read it, and the idea in the book of not being able to escape your destiny stayed with me. It occurred to me that a lot of my works at the time were reflecting the idea that everything has its time. Everything changes.\u201d<\/p>\n John McCormack, one of the original founders and directors of the New Zealand gallery, Starkwhite, has had first-hand experience of the way Zavros\u2019s practice has evolved. \u201cWhen we started showing Michael in 2014, he was the artist with a reputation for painting beautiful things beautifully,\u201d says McCormack, \u201cbut later, he turned his gaze to family and self. His work is now inescapably about him: his lifestyle, his interests and how his life intersects with art. The works in Dunedin are incredibly alluring, but at the same time discomfiting because they put the spotlight on thorny issues, such as the way children are pictured in art, in popular culture, or on social media. I love that you have to go beyond the surface of Michael\u2019s work to get to the content. He\u2019s impossible to pigeonhole \u2013 he\u2019s a technically superb painter, but he\u2019s also part impresario, part performance artist and part installation artist. It\u2019s my belief good artists should always have projects that push boundaries, as well as the work they do for their collectors.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the past 15 years, pushing boundaries within his practice seems to have been all-encompassing<\/a>. Everything from a \u201cdrowned\u201d Mercedes to bronzes, miniatures, massive canvases, exquisite charcoal drawings, videos and photographs \u2013 it appears that all Zavros has to do is to want to do it, and there it is. It may have been partly his ability to step away from the easel that prompted the organisers of the 2025 Gold Coast BLEACH Festival to appoint him as artistic director. The event culminated in Cavalcade \u2013 an epic finale on the beach featuring opera, orchestras, dressage and trick riding while a full moon rose from the sea. Imagined by Zavros and directed by Gavin Webber, it was a risky idea with a lot of moving parts.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a control freak like me it was scary, and to experience giving up control \u2013 because after all, we couldn\u2019t, for example, direct the weather \u2013 really took me outside my comfort zone,\u201d says Zavros. \u201cBut then, my whole idea had been to explore the concepts of control and freedom, and so I couldn\u2019t back away from that. In the end, it all went brilliantly\u2009\u2026\u2009but I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d do a festival again. I had to do my best and just let go. I guess, in a way, there\u2019s been a few years of that \u2013 \u2018the horse is bucking, so hold on.\u2019 But with festivals, ultimately, spreadsheets are really not my thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Spreadsheets may not be his thing, but grand ideas certainly are, and Zavros had the left-field notion of inviting Jeff Koons, arguably the most famous living artist in the world, to attend as a participant. \u201cIt was ambitious,\u201d says Zavros, \u201cbut I worked in collaboration with the NGA [National Gallery of Australia], who were bringing him to Australia. I\u2019ve always believed that if you want something, it\u2019s worth asking.\u201d<\/p>\n As it turned out, it wasn\u2019t just a professional coup, it also gave Zavros personal inspiration during the troubled time of the separation. \u201cJeff is probably the artist that\u2019s had the most impact on me, but something curious happened when he and wife, Justine, and five of their children came over to our house for dinner,\u201d he tells me. \u201cThe kids got on really well, and even chose to hang out the following week. I watched how much the kids adored their dad, with all of them coming to the public conversation with Alison [at the festival\u2019s opening night], and listening to him with such love and reverence. It occurred to me after the festival that he\u2019d deeply inspired me again, and that rather than his colossal career achievements, his personal and family achievements were much greater \u2013 which was quite out of the blue for me. I realised that the most important thing to me was \u2013 and is \u2013 that my children would feel about me as Jeff\u2019s kids obviously feel about him.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea of \u201cDad\u201d \u2013 good or bad, or even, in the case of his lookalike mannequin, indifferent \u2013 has been present in Zavros\u2019s work for several decades, ever since he became a father, but the separation, if the two most recent exhibitions are any indication, seems to have created even more exploration in Zavros\u2019s work of the boundary between his personal life and his art. His work often oscillates between genres \u2013 there\u2019s the exploration into bronze-making he started in 2006 featuring a pregnant horse lying down, entitled The waiting one, self-portraits, his children, still life, horses, centaurs, installations and the perfection of his charcoal drawings. And yet, there is also the smallest of works, Head of a horse, a 13-centimetre by 8-centimetre oil on board that Zavros gifted Phoebe for her birthday, and the trembling perfection of Phalaenopsis looking away, the beautiful pale mauve flowers in the blue-and-white pot in the exhibition, sitting on the kitchen bench as we talk.<\/p>\n The interesting dichotomy between the largest of works to the smallest is reflected in his outlook on life. In many ways, his home life is introverted, with many hours spent in the studio. When he\u2019s not at work or with the family, or looking after his menagerie, he\u2019s gardening, which he describes as \u201cmy meditation \u2026 it\u2019s how I can put everything else aside for a while.\u201d In contrast to his interior life, his finished work, however, has always been extroverted and sure of itself. It makes statements, and Zavros is not really bothered whether the viewer \u201cgets\u201d his allusions or not. \u201cI don\u2019t mind if viewers revel in that first surface level of the painting,\u201d he says. \u201cI have my reasons for creating a work, but I prefer it to have a nuance or an invitation into the deeper meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019ve always been anxious, and I\u2019ve come to understand that\u2019s part of who I am.\u2019<\/p>\n Michael Zavros<\/p>\n If there is any noted nuance, it must surely be a certain male-centric aesthetic, with the exploration of masculine beauty and iconography so often present in his oeuvre. There\u2019s also a continuing duality between theatricality and vulnerability \u2013 present, for example in his 2015 self-portrait, The Sunbather, in which he lies alongside his pool, gazing at his own reflection in the water, the tiniest of squiggles on his hip reading \u201cAli\u201d, a tattoo he acquired years earlier when the couple were deeply in love. It seems poignant that the painting and tattoo will continue on after the marriage has ended.<\/p>\n After the tumult of the past few years, I wonder if the anxiety and depression he has spoken about has lessened. \u201cUnfortunately, no,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve always been anxious, and I\u2019ve come to understand that\u2019s part of who I am. I also know that tomorrow is a different day, and that it will pass. I think it\u2019s connected to going through the creative process, where doubt is so important. It\u2019s that knife-edge between doubt and confidence \u2013 but the work I do that worries me the most is usually among the best I do.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article It\u2019s a somewhat surreal juxtaposition that a retrospective entitled Meet the Zavros\u2019s is happening almost concurrently with Things Fall Apart, but then this is an artist whose projects constantly explore the tension between art and life, and where those two merge. Of the three children, it\u2019s the two \u201cheads\u201d who have shown the most interest in art, with both Leo and Olympia recently winning prizes for their artworks, although Zavros sees a difference between his lifelong need to be an artist and their interest. \u201cAs I child I was already obsessed with drawing and painting,\u201d he says, \u201cwhereas both Leo and Olympia have an ability to retain information, and to realise it artistically, but they\u2019re not obsessed in the same way I was.\u201d<\/p>\n When he gets home, a new experiment will be waiting for him. Zavros recently acquired artist Elisabeth Cummings\u2019 beautiful old etching press, and although he hasn\u2019t used it yet, he fully intends to when he is back from New Zealand. \u201cPlaying with it,\u201d he says, \u201cwill be a reward for the hard work of the last few years.\u201d<\/p>\n To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald<\/a>,The Age<\/a> and Brisbane Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-177436","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Trompe-l\u2019oeil](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/5065369b0d474cf778834bf838f2dde9619710ef.jpeg\")
Trompe-l\u2019oeil paintings of two of Zavros\u2019s children\u2019s heads at the Dunedin gallery.Paul Harris<\/p>\n![\"Zavros](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1764980710_991_6181eeecb2c1e9791dc53b66ca241c8efc2fa035.jpeg\")
Zavros in the house he still shares with wife Alison Kubler, despite their separation.Paul Harris<\/p>\n![\"Zavros](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/70d40bea7035b134157afb6436d94b563b5a66d2.jpeg\")
Zavros as a young boy in the Gold Coast hinterland with his father and three of his sisters.Courtesy of Michael Zavros<\/p>\n![\"\u201cDrowned](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/29eca92e8d5bcd0a2a1a6a6269ccc6860ca82f30.jpeg\")
\u201cDrowned Mercedes\u201d (2023), a Mercedes-Benz SL convertible filled with water, featured at the Queensland Art Gallery\/Gallery of Modern Art.
\nPhotography by Joe Ruckli | QAGOMA<\/p>\n![\"Classical](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/a770198fbfaf131002ebc364c2abfe63a52b0d25ab4619184603451cca0c16fa.gif\")
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