Artist Michael Zavros creates dummy dad for new Sydney exhibition

Followers of Michael Zavros will be shocked by the content of the successful artist’s long-awaited Sydney exhibition next week, his first show here in over a decade.

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Followers of Michael Zavroswill be shocked by the content of the successful artist’s long-awaited Sydney exhibition next week, his first show here in over a decade.

The selection of photographs appear to be of the impossibly handsome Queensland artist sunbathing with cucumber slices on his eyes, posing with his beautiful children or his chestnut showjumper, Thomas.

But, no.

The former competitive rider, who boasts 91,500 Instagram followers and made his name 20 years ago with reverential paintings of luxury men’s fashions, is not in the photographs at all.

A photo from the exhibition.

The depiction of Michael Zavros.

Standing in for Zavros is a store mannequin called Dad which Zavros altered to look just like him. It’s the next step for Zavros who has famously mined the theme of narcissism by painting himself gazing at his own reflection, either in his swimming pool or in the duco of his Merc.

Zavros told Arts Editor Elizabeth Fortescue that the cancellation of commitments during the pandemic had given him more time to experiment and Dad was the result.

“I had to find a lot of different people to work with in order to make this thing,” he said. Zavros sculpted the head and had it 3D printed.

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The head was then attached to a store-bought mannequin and the whole thing was airbrushed to match his skin tones. “He’s a better version of me — 6’3” (190cm), broader, more cut, a bit younger and a lot smoother,” Zavros said.

The real life Michael Zavros with his wife Alison Kubler

While concerned about the effect of social media on young people, Zavros said he and his art curator wife Alison Kubler often have full and frank conversations about things with their children Phoebe, 15, Olympia, 13, andLeo, nine.

Zavros’s show, A Guy Like Me, is at Sullivan and Strumpf in ­Zetland from October 15 until November 14.