Tall Tales

The Monthly Interview: Jonathan Zawada

The multi-disciplinary artist has worked with musicians from Flume to The Avalanches and most recently Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke on their new project, Tall Tales. Here he reflects on the timeless collision of music, art and commerce, plus the influence of AI

Over the past three decades, artist Jonathan Zawada’s work has seen him exploring the complex, inextricable relationship between technology and the human experience. With a practice deeply rooted in web design and coding, his colourful, often hyperreal work blends virtual and physical realms, spanning everything from product design to music videos, album artwork and live visuals.

Zawada’s interest in design began in his mid-teens when he undertook an after school job carrying out clean ups at a local animation company. Self-taught in web coding, by the late 1990s he found himself in demand as a programmer, building animated websites and later abandoned a short-lived art and design degree to focus on web design full time. He went on to design the website for Sydney-based electro duo The Presets, who enlisted him to design their EP cover, sparking a whole new career avenue in the process.

“At that time, I really wanted to do graphic design,” he recalls. “I was in love with album cover art, just as a fan. I wasn’t really even aware it was a job that you could do, and I definitely didn’t think it was a job that I would end up doing. It was just sort of a meandering, organic process.”

Following diversions into art direction for magazines, books and catalogues and work within streetwear fashion and textiles, Zawada assumed the role of creative director at Australian record label Modular. “It was all very messy and mixed up,” he laughs. “Around the age of 30, I started paring back and figuring out exactly what I wanted to do.” In 2011, he made the decision to relocate from Sydney to Los Angeles with a view to distancing himself from the commercial world entirely.

Artwork for Skin by Flume