Simo Zabell in his studio in Granada, Spain, 2024
Square Art Projects: Hi Simon, what projects have you got coming up?
Simon Zabell: I currently have an installation on show in the city of Murcia - most of my activity is in Spain as you know - called All Together Now, which I created specifically for the space which is a little 19th Century Neogothic Chapel. Working for these kinds of historic spaces is something that I enjoy a lot and I find that I always end up learning and evolving my work to make it possible within the specific context. I also have a large show coming up in early 2025 in Badajoz, also in Spain by the Portuguese border. It’s a large space and I’ll be including large paintings and sculptures.
SAP: Can you tell us more about your working process?
SZ: My process seems to become more intuitive as I get older, which I have no complaints about as this means more fun. I’ve always worked around issues that I become interested in, more often than not creations by other artists, writers, and filmmakers, but when I look back my older work seems so very rational and intellectual, but also much like illustration. My current research is around musical sensations, the very idea of rhythm and musical structure and the possibility of those same sensations being transmitted visually. The thing is I’m doing this in a much more intuitive manner: first tapping into the music and the theory, and then just letting images appear, always steering away from any idea that may be an illustration in one way or another. I don’t want to represent the music, I want to represent the sensations and feelings music can stir up in us.
Simon Zabell in his studio in Granada, Spain, 2024.
Simon Zabell's studio in Granada, Spain, 2024.
SAP: You are an avid reader. How does this inform your work?
SZ: Reading has always been at the base of my creative process, I can’t help it. Even with these rhythmical enquiries, you would think that just listening would be enough, but it never is - I always feel the need to read other people’s view of those rhythms, their history, evolution, migrations, and so on. I guess my imagination is trained or wired at source, or both, to turn written information into images.
SAP: Could you tell us more about the work in the exhibition ‘Mother of many’?
SZ: These works are some of the most intuitive I’ve ever produced; I don’t mind confessing that I made quite an effort to prevent any excesses of self-censorship, rationalisation or filtering of the original ideas that would appear in my head. Once the images are rooted in my imagination, I would apply the hyper-rational imposition of a grid by sketching on graph paper. Some of these sketches are going to be included in the show. In my creative process they are a way of applying some order to an image that has no arguable meaning. The title Mother of many is in a way a reference to rhythmic patterns that are in the basis of most of the music we listen to and that came out of Africa in different migratory waves throughout history.
SAP: Finally, if you could exhibit your work alongside any artist, living or dead, who would it be?
EG: Ah, these questions are always the most difficult. I find it very tricky to show my work alongside other visual artists so I’m going to cheat and name a musician (laughs). It would be bass player James Jamerson; my ambition is to be able to structure my work in a way that it should make as much sense in an indescribable way as his basslines. I once read that some of his best basslines were recorded with him so drunk that he had to play lying down; it would be great to have him playing lying down within the exhibition space (laughs).
All text and images ©Square Art Projects 2024
Installation view of Simon Zabell's Mother of many exhibition, 2024