Zest’s compositions are flashy, colourful and vital. The series Undercover reflects the vibrant transience of walls, which are mostly behind a clean layer of varnish. Kolly Gallery is excited to present Zest’s newest series Undercover.

Undercover deals with the energetic and lively layers of paint hidden behind a monochrome surface – usually over decades of time or even for ever! Therefore the artists’ main objective is to re-enable the colour explosions to find their way back to the surface.

This series allows to show a glimpse of the vitality hidden behind what would otherwise go unnoticed. Time and space find a way of coexisting and breathing the creative force into the here and now.

Zest juxtaposes visually explosive multilayered background and the abstract monotonous facades. Sometimes the varnish is literally and brutally ripped off, sometimes the artist brings background and surface into an abstract composition. Each piece reflects a different intensity of expressiveness. All of them are based on a dark ultramarine blue varnish, whereas the bright colours emanating from underground succeed each other through dynamic cycles of life.

While translating this concept to a holistic level of interpretation, the artist claims, that as soon as the external appearance begins to fade, the true self will appear.

This means the clean layer of varnish is translated to the facade, that each person in our society shows on the outside. Underneath that facade lies a vivid and multilayered set of emotions and intentions, which makes the individual human character on the inside unique. He emphasises: „Everything we are trying to erase, comes back to the surface.“ Therefore the obscured aspects of the inside are always determined to find their way to the surface and ultimately explode in their uniqueness.

From the very start Zest’s artistic pursuit has evolved from figurative images to cubist, geometrical and even abstract worlds. His art is not anymore a translation of what he observes, but rather an expression of his inner sensation, which he carries from the inside out.