We saw him dazzle Eurovision. Now this singer is electrifying art

Adding precise brushstrokes of gold to a large canvas in the APY Studio in Adelaide, Zaachariaha Fielding seems a world away from the dazzling singer in a shimmering white dress who commanded the psychedelic stage at the Eurovision semi-final in Sweden last year.

Then, he was performing as part of electronic music duo Electric Fields in front of a vocal live audience at Malmö Arena and millions of TV viewers worldwide. Today, having recently returned from the United States, where a solo exhibition of his work was held in Los Angeles, the quietly focused artist is working on a new painting for this month’s Melbourne Art Fair.

“I’m trying to just have fun with both of them,” he says of his music and art. “They’re both performative, joyous places to be in.”

Indicating the painting in front of him, Fielding adds: “This is music already … I’m also performing on the canvas, so they are the same evolving choreography because it comes from one person and it’s my channel. For any song people here [in the shared studio space] it’s the same.”

Zaacharaiaha Fielding, Untitled (2-25AS), 2025.Credit: Sam Roberts

Music came first for Fielding, who is originally from the tiny community of Mimili on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in north-west South Australia. His route to the Eurovision stage can be mapped via YouTube videos that include an appearance on The Voice with the duo ZK in 2014 and his 2011 audition for The X Factor. It was there, following his heartfelt rendition of Tracy Chapman’s Talkin’ Bout a Revolution, that judge Guy Sebastian told the then 19-year-old: “You have what it takes to be a star in this country – and beyond.”

Regrettably, there is no public record of Fielding’s first live performance: singing Elvis Presley’s Blue Suede Shoes at a primary school assembly in Quorn, in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges.

“Yeeesss!” he says, when asked to confirm the story, before laughing in puzzlement at why the music teacher chose that particular song for him. “All the kids, they had the cardboard cards with the lyrics and they were flipping them over – it was legendary!”

At the time, his family was living with Fielding’s paternal grandfather, a member of the stolen generations who was taken as a small boy from Mimili and placed in the Colebrook Home in Quorn. When Fielding was eight, his father – celebrated multidisciplinary artist Robert Fielding – moved the family back to their ancestral homeland.

Fielding, the eldest of nine children, says he had an “interesting” time in Mimili, especially as a child whose feminine side already sat naturally in his body. At the same time, the reconnection to Country and immersion in culture had a strong influence on the music and art he would go on to create as an adult.

Lyrics in Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara often feature in the music of Electric Fields, which Fielding formed 10 years ago with co-producer and keyboardist Michael Ross. The pair were chosen by SBS to compete at last year’s Eurovision after coming second to Kate Miller-Heidke in the broadcaster’s 2019 national selection show, Eurovision – Australia Decides.

Zaachariaha Fielding performs at last year’s Eurovision Song Contest.Credit: AP

Fielding is proud they were able to take Aṉangu language to Eurovision with their song One Milkali (One Blood), which also featured Butchulla song man Fred Leone playing the yidaki, and says he loved every moment of the experience.

“The atmosphere was so electric – it was so big. It was one of those things you cannot articulate well because you have to be in it to really know the magnitude of it. It was the audience, it was the camaraderie of it all … it didn’t feel like a competition for
us.”

He also showcased his artwork to the world during the performance when his vibrant painting Paraulpi, which portrays “a sacred bond between generations”, was projected onto the stage.

Fielding took up painting in 2020, during COVID lockdowns. His visual art career took off quickly when he was offered a spot in the APY Studio, operated by the APY Art Centre Collective; he was invited to present an exhibition later the same year. He says he was excited to embrace a new medium, and encouraged by the support of his elders in the studio.

“In anything you do, when you feel like you’re good at it … you get the jitters, you know?” he says, adding that he still paints with that same energy. “If I don’t feel like I want to be placid and light, I do have the opportunity to be radical and fun.”

His memories of Mimili and the influence of the ancestral stories and landscapes of the desert country are ever-present in his work, but the Adelaide-based artist also finds inspiration in everyday interactions with people in the city – from a conversation at a coffee shop to the time a homeless man asked Fielding if he could spare a sheet for his newly acquired queen-sized mattress.

Zaachariaha Fielding after taking out the 2023 Wynne Prize.Credit: Steven Siewert

“I document everything, all the things that are good and bad, in the canvas and through sound when I’m in the music studio … I try to simplify and marry the sorrow and joy together,” he says.

Within a few years, Fielding has enjoyed remarkable success with his painting, including winning the Art Gallery of NSW’s Wynne Prize in 2023. He has shown his work in numerous exhibitions, and collaborated with fashion house Romance Was Born on its collection for last year’s Australian Fashion Week. His latest paintings will be presented at the Melbourne Art Fair by Adelaide’s Hugo Michell Gallery.

In a storage room at the rear of the APY Studio, he shows me some of his recent works, including one that sizzles with vivacity and colour, no corner of the canvas left untouched. In contrast, the painting he is completing for the art fair has a pared-back palette of what he describes as “regal” tones of black, gold, magenta and burgundy. It is, he agrees, more minimalist.

“Quietness is good. So when I’m on the white canvas I like to challenge how much I can fill on the canvas and how much I can go light on it. It’s stripping it back and I feel like it sets me up to see how brave I can be, because if it’s minimal, you’re naked in it.”

Zaacharaiaha Fielding, Untitled (5-25AS), 2025.Credit: Sam Roberts

After a pause, he adds: “All the works are more feelings, really. This one feels light, not so full, so it’s when you’ve lost three kilos and are very proud of yourself, you know?”

Zaachariaha Fielding, Untitled (690-23AS), 2023.Credit: Sam Roberts

During our chat, Fielding speaks about societal “isms” and schisms, yin and yang, life, death … and beyond. He sees himself as blending into an ongoing legacy, noting that he and other Aangu artists in the studio sit with the songlines that have been passed down to them.

“They all represent their Babushka dolls as well; like, we’re not just 20 people sitting in here. It’s who you carry on your shoulders … I think that’s what makes it so powerful and staunch, working like this.”

The artist, like his multidisciplinary practice, is constantly evolving, and while he plans to embrace whatever comes next, he is also happy with where he is now.

“I accept me now,” he says. “I think I’ve got a bit of good control over my orchestra that’s playing in my head. I think I might be the conductor now.”

The Melbourne Art Fair is at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, February 20-23.