THE SIT DOWN
07: ZACH ZONO
Aged 26, with shows in New York, Bangkok, Madrid, and London to his name, it doesn’t read like the trajectory of someone who arrived in the city at 19 with no formal art training. Zach Zono’s practice doesn’t follow an academic arc. It moves more like a tide – and it’s an incredibly strong force.
Born in Cape Town in 1999, Zono grew up in an environment where creativity wasn’t a career path so much as a way of being. Music came first. Playing in bands as a teenager, he was the one making album covers, painting in a makeshift shed in the garden, learning through necessity rather than instruction. Abstract art wasn’t framed as something you “became” in South Africa. It simply existed alongside performance, craft, and tradition.
At 19, armed with a British passport and no formal training, he moved to London. The intention wasn’t painting specifically. It was art, in whatever form it demanded. He painted obsessively, shared work online, went to openings, absorbed the city. Early mentors arrived by chance: a first flat-share with two publishers who introduced him to the rhythms of the art world, followed by two formative years assisting painter Tomo Campbell. “That was my art school,” he says. Alongside the internet, those relationships taught him how to look, how to sustain a practice, and how to understand visual language beyond surface appeal.
The early years were defined by hustle. Painting in borrowed studios at night, self-funding and staging six DIY solo shows in two years. Gradually, people began to notice. Group shows followed, then international opportunities. By his early twenties, he was exhibiting across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the US. The growth was fast, but never accidental.
Zono remains unrepresented by choice. The flexibility matters. At 26, he values control, pacing, and the ability to say yes or no. Lately, that’s meant slowing down. Fewer solos, longer conversations with each body of work, letting paintings stretch over months rather than days.
His paintings have shifted accordingly. Early works were flatter, more figurative, often built around repeated floral motifs. Over time, the hand loosened. Memory took over from planning. Abstraction emerged not as an aesthetic decision, but as a consequence of experience. “The art is a product of my environment,” he says. Each canvas functions like a visual diary, absorbing places lived, cities passed through, moments half-remembered.
The process is physical and intuitive. Large canvases begin on the floor. Oil paint is diluted, sprayed, thrown, allowed to pool and run under gravity. Zono treats oil as both material and subject, pushing a traditional medium into something volatile and unpredictable. Layers are built, stripped back, reworked. Increasingly, he tries to honour the first mark. Some paintings resolve in a day. Others are turned to the wall for a year before re-entering the conversation.
Colour plays a central role. Warm tones once dominated, shaped by Cape Town light and sunsets. More recent works introduce cooler palettes, expanding the emotional temperature of the paintings. Throughout, flora-like gestures recur, not as symbols to decode, but as open forms.
Zach Zono paints from trust: in the hand, in the studio, in time. His work doesn’t arrive fully formed. It accumulates, loosens, returns. Less about explanation, more about experience. A practice still unfolding, but already confident enough to let the work breathe on its own terms.
Born in Cape Town in 1999, Zono grew up in an environment where creativity wasn’t a career path so much as a way of being. Music came first. Playing in bands as a teenager, he was the one making album covers, painting in a makeshift shed in the garden, learning through necessity rather than instruction. Abstract art wasn’t framed as something you “became” in South Africa. It simply existed alongside performance, craft, and tradition.
At 19, armed with a British passport and no formal training, he moved to London. The intention wasn’t painting specifically. It was art, in whatever form it demanded. He painted obsessively, shared work online, went to openings, absorbed the city. Early mentors arrived by chance: a first flat-share with two publishers who introduced him to the rhythms of the art world, followed by two formative years assisting painter Tomo Campbell. “That was my art school,” he says. Alongside the internet, those relationships taught him how to look, how to sustain a practice, and how to understand visual language beyond surface appeal.
The early years were defined by hustle. Painting in borrowed studios at night, self-funding and staging six DIY solo shows in two years. Gradually, people began to notice. Group shows followed, then international opportunities. By his early twenties, he was exhibiting across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the US. The growth was fast, but never accidental.
Zono remains unrepresented by choice. The flexibility matters. At 26, he values control, pacing, and the ability to say yes or no. Lately, that’s meant slowing down. Fewer solos, longer conversations with each body of work, letting paintings stretch over months rather than days.
His paintings have shifted accordingly. Early works were flatter, more figurative, often built around repeated floral motifs. Over time, the hand loosened. Memory took over from planning. Abstraction emerged not as an aesthetic decision, but as a consequence of experience. “The art is a product of my environment,” he says. Each canvas functions like a visual diary, absorbing places lived, cities passed through, moments half-remembered.
The process is physical and intuitive. Large canvases begin on the floor. Oil paint is diluted, sprayed, thrown, allowed to pool and run under gravity. Zono treats oil as both material and subject, pushing a traditional medium into something volatile and unpredictable. Layers are built, stripped back, reworked. Increasingly, he tries to honour the first mark. Some paintings resolve in a day. Others are turned to the wall for a year before re-entering the conversation.
Colour plays a central role. Warm tones once dominated, shaped by Cape Town light and sunsets. More recent works introduce cooler palettes, expanding the emotional temperature of the paintings. Throughout, flora-like gestures recur, not as symbols to decode, but as open forms.
Zach Zono paints from trust: in the hand, in the studio, in time. His work doesn’t arrive fully formed. It accumulates, loosens, returns. Less about explanation, more about experience. A practice still unfolding, but already confident enough to let the work breathe on its own terms.
PF: Who or what has influenced your work the most?
My biggest influence has been lived experience, places I’ve spent time in, people I’ve grown alongside, and the way memory shifts over time. Growing up in Cape Town gave me a strong relationship to colour, light, and space, while living in London introduced a different rhythm and intensity
PF: Walk us through your creative process?
My process is very intuitive and physical. I usually work on several canvases at once, moving between them as ideas and energy shift. Paintings often begin with a quick, instinctive mark and then build slowly over time, sometimes over months. I move the canvases from wall to floor, flip them, layer and remove paint, letting gravity, gesture, and accident play a role. It’s less about planning and more about responding, allowing the work to find its own rhythm.
PF: What do you want people to feel or take away from your art?
I hope people slow down. I want the work to feel immersive, something you can step into emotionally rather than understand immediately. If a painting triggers a memory, a feeling, or a moment, that’s enough. I’m not interested in fixed meanings; I’d rather let the work remain open, allowing each viewer to bring their own experience into it.
PF: If you could have dinner with any artist who would it be?
Probably Willem de Kooning. Not just for his paintings, but for the way he lived inside the act of painting, constantly questioning, reworking, and pushing against certainty. I’d love to hear how he navigated doubt, momentum, and the long-term relationship with his practice.