Which piece of your work is the most personal and why?
Firstly, I will say that the newer works/themes seem to reveal more a autobiographical tone. This may seem a bit ironic, as the newer work tends to focus less on my body as the single outlet of narrative significance. If pressed to pick one piece, I would say Vignette, a 20 foot drawing I developed for a Montreal exhibition last year called ‘Domestic Queens’ that dealt with queer domesticity. This drawing, an homage to my relationship with my husband Ned produced a shift in the development of space as a key narrative element in my current work, as well it made me re-evaluate the significance of my figure within the work. This shift in focus came about in part through the depiction of a second personage, my husband Ned. Because of the coupled emergence of my husband, myself and our cats, Willow and Asherah, Vignette became the first piece I truly considered a deeply personal image. The depiction of Ned anchored me in a genuinely biographical portrayal, beyond the simple use of my figure. In my earlier works my body acts as a glyph, a conveyance that aimed a focus on critiquing stereotypic masculinity; within Vignette, is a portrait of my family. Politically, this is a critique of masculine norms, but it is also an affirmation of lived experience. Vignette was accompanied by two smaller drawings flanked on either side, titled Apt. 4B and Apt. 15. These were intimate drawings of the most recent apartments we inhabited. These two drawings, both blue pencil on mylar, materially, reference delftware; while the imagery references the works of Vermeer and De hooch, existing as metaphoric ‘blueprints’ of the spaces in which we live our lives together.
Which piece was the hardest to produce?
I think there is a tie. Definitely Vignette. It became a piece that contained a lot of firsts. Not only was it deeply personal, and included the depiction of someone other than myself (for the first time in over 5 years), the space itself became a main narrative element. Rather than being simply defined by a series of directional shadows, like many of my previous works, the space became a much more complex tableau. The composition definitely draws comparisons to earlier works, it remains neo-classical, basically a frieze-like field of depth; however, the use of the garden motif opened up for me a substantial amount of metaphoric potential, and because of its size, it took a very long time to complete. In terms of sheer technical difficulty, definitely Emperor’s New Clothes. It was the first time I’d used pastel on such a large scale, and the constant re-creation/ re-situation of the butterflies to make the image breathe almost caused my brain to spill out.

Duality #1, Abraham & Isaac is a really strong image, how has it been received?
I would say it has garnered a more positive reception, but there have been definitely been negative reactions to this work. This drawing was created for an exhibition in Barcelona from 2010, titled Duality. For this exhibition I enacted the re-visioning of famous art historical/mythological personages from both classical and biblical stories, in an exploration of the dual nature of self. This was the first drawing in the series. I have always found this story fascinating, it is for me, principally, a story about self-annihilation. The dark mix of sadism or trickery on the part of the biblical god coupled with Abraham’s unwavering trust toward his god, and a parallel of Isaac’s unwavering trust toward his father Abraham, presents a deep paradoxical irony. I chose for my version, an exacto to represent the knife, my penis to represent ‘body‘, and my foreskin as the neck. In this re-telling both Abraham and Isaac a re engaged in cutting, and it is themselves they intend to mutilate. This drawing is Similar in context to an earlier series of drawings, the Invincibles, in which I used my body to portray catholic saints and Christ figures in theatrical states of mutilation to critique the morbid use of the male body as a visual tool of violent transcendence. The use of the exacto evokes a correlation to the mythic imagery of 9-11, creating a more subversive association, as does it’s use in the slicing of foreskin, (rather than the neck) a very sensitive area of male anatomy, and its obvious associations to manhood, as well as religious rites.

Do you think you will always keep yourself as the main subject or do you have plans to bring other prominent Subjects into your work?
I feel that a shift has occurred in the figurative element of my work, not that my body has lost it’s significance, but that other aspects have gained in narrative importance. This shift I would describe as the exploration of art-historic motifs along with an emergent focus on the natural processes of both plants and animals in relation to landscape and the human form.

What is your favourite myth or fable?
There are so many that I love, but the myth that currently holds my interest the most is Daphne and Apollo. I have done many, many drawings based on this story. I love the stark queerness of the character of Daphne who at first pleads with her father to let her remain unmarried, a spinster goddess. Then because of the aggressive advances of love by Apollo, (caused by the golden arrow of Eros) whom Daphne in turn loathed (caused by Eros’ lead arrow) again begs her father for help, who in turn, transforms her into a laurel tree. Apollo in a shockingly gay turn, fashions himself a crown out of some of her laurel branches… This story has had a huge influence on me recently. I often embody the part of the story that has been of interest historically to artists like Bernini and Bruegel; that is, the vision of Daphne transforming into the laurel. A recent drawing, Stick-man is in direct reference to this transformation. It is from an exhibition titled Trauma & Other Stories that opened in NYC last November. This series of drawings, exploring the transformative nature of insult on the queer body, actually included several Daphne inspired motifs. The terrifying spectacle of her transformation into something miraculous, something untouchable came to her at the cost of her freedom, her very life. In my opinion, it is a truly important narrative for anyone interested in identity politics.http://www.zacharilogan.com/

Interview by Michael Page:

Your series Caprice features several paintings of nudes falling, flying or casting off. Where did this shift to the slightly surreal come from compared to your narrative series?
I don’t see them as surreal except maybe in the sense of dreamlike. Being a great lover of Tiepolo and, later, Bouguereau I wanted to have a bit of fun with the idea of people floating around in the sky. The narrative paintings were getting a bit serious and I wanted a break. However as always ideas begin to have a life of their own and different kinds of narrative emerge.

To me there seems to be a subtle religious reference within the series; figures falling from the heavens, soaring amongst the clouds – where do the nudes voyaging off to the unknown fit in with the rest of this body of work?
There is no religious intention in these paintings. If you really want to stretch a point they are science fiction, since I believe human beings are quite capable of any thing they set their minds to, but your question shows that interpretation of visual images into words is a rich and mixed process.

Is there any significance behind the fact that the majority of the figures in the skies, indeed most of the Caprice series is female? 
Of course there is and it’s sexual. I much prefer looking at women than at men and usually only depict men in conflict or danger. Also, there is a convention in western painting of using female nudes to express spatial or compositional ideas.

The series of lone figures flying amongst the clouds speaks to me of freedom, human’s nature to soar amongst the heavens. Do you ever get questioned about it in reference to Frauds theory that dreaming about flying connotes sexual repression/freedom?
Most of my psychologist friends agree with your Freudian spelling and are a bit down on Freud and Jung but they did provoke some great images in their writings and as an art student they were required reading. But even then I could never get excited about symbolic imagery. Reality is strange enough.

What’s your process behind the work – do you have three paintings on the go at once, or focus on one specifically until complete. Does being a internationally renowned artist hinder this, or aid it?
I have up to forty paintings on the go. What with drying times between layers and needing a month or more perspective on a painting I may not be sure about, it’s good to have different options to work on.

How do you compose your paintings, is there an organic process behind it, or do you go to the easel with a particular image in your head – this painting will be six females flying down over a tree line or a lone figure floating amongst the clouds?
Paintings are composed in drawings, ideas  that can take years to come to anything or come in a moment of inspiration. Nearly always a combination of these. Once I’m pretty sure about a composition I’ll get models in and draw it up properly. It often starts with a line of composition of, for example, the rhythm of arms that runs between two or more figures. In the Caprice series one is less inhibited by gravitational niceties so the rhythms, and the positive and negative spaces, can be more complex.

From your experienced career as a professional artist what’s your perception of the current world of art? Coming from a very traditional background what are your feelings on the continuing paradigm towards the state after post modernism, and do you feel this effects your work?
I gave up on the official, that is the orthodox, art world long ago. It’s not interested in me and I’m not interested in it. The current insistence on presentation over substance has more to do with curator’s careers than with any artistic activity I care about.

A few of my friends have gone through St Martins, they always have a couple of interesting stories, what’s you favourite memory while you there?
I seem to remember weird people showing up and talking bollocks about the latest intellectual fashions, for example cybernetics. Gilbert and George wandering round in makeup and feather hats. Parties at tutor’s houses in strange outlying parts of London. The most pathetic thing was an “event” by Yoko Ono and her then husband. Us embarrassed students were treated to a series of what seemed to us like children’s party games. My favourite memory is of Freddie Gore, then head of painting, telling me I would never be a painter but I might make it as a graphic designer.

What has been the highlight of your illustrative career so far?
Well currently its doing commissions for Hardcore and Breakcore artists because I can do a lot of my really gory stuff. Not having to change my style for some sort of cultural restriction or whatever. I can go as disgusting as I like.

Exhibition wise, the highlight would be in 2007 where I had my first ever solo exhibition. That was the first time I got into illustration. I did this huge series of carousels and horses.

What fuels your creativity?
Music mostly, I can’t work without music. I really get inspired by the sounds and the imagery it creates in my head. Also my dreams, like freaky dreams with zombies and I just have to draw it out because it was in my head. Also, whenever I come back from a museum and see a mind-blowing exhibition I just have to draw. I feel if I don’t bring a notebook with me it’s like this bomb that’s going to explode.

Where does your style come from?
It comes from graphic novels mainly, and artists such as Makoto Aida and Francis Bacon… Obviously. I’ve always been really intrigued in the old 1800’s French architectural drawings, the way they draw their sculptures and fountains. I’m always really inspired by that.

Your work has a strong feeling of painfully obscured growth, what are you trying to express?
When I was doing the carousel series there had to be a lot of really decorative, tiny bits, like on the floor and on the designs of each horse. It came from that because I was sick of drawing these pretty baroque things. Then I started looking at a lot of horror style illustrations and saw that they almost seemed to be breathing. I got intrigued by intestines and I liked to put them on the outside. I think it came from wanting to put two completely different matters together.

Do you draw portraits of people?
I’m trying. I’m trying to get into doing more classical and realistic work. The only one I’ve ever done is of my ex, and I gave that to him.

What is your most favourite possession?
Oh my God, I like so many things! Like something I can’t go without? I don’t want to say I can’t live without my computer because that’s really shit. It would be a locket necklace that I got from the thrift store. I brought it for £4 and it’s been with me since I was 16.  I don’t really feel safe without it.

If the world where to end, how would you see it go?
Well a flood has happened to me before. That was shit! I mean it wasn’t the end of the world but it did feel like it. So I’m going to have to say it would be a zombie apocalypse.

So how would you see life return to the planet?
In my head right now I think of this wasteland, completely pale because there’s no nutrition in the floor. People have been deformed because they live in caves and they look like hairless apes, pale as fuck but with long white hair coming from their head. Skinny, and they have their own stupid kingdom, and they have canes!

See more of her work on her Facebook Page

What do you find the most difficult thing about working on set?
Probably the frustration of not getting everything captured the way I visualized it 100%.  It’s somewhat disheartening at the moment, but I usually end up getting something special in it’s own way.

You’ve had an interest in images since you were a child; tell me what it was like for you as a child. Are there defining moments in your past that got you to where you are today?
My entire childhood is basically catalogued via images.  Some people remember emotions and moments, but I vividly remember images.  I was fascinated by the design of the natural world and especially space/astronomy.  I definitely think growing up in Miami and travelling all around the world as a young child had a huge influence on my eye.  There’s nothing like seeing these strange alien landscapes and foreign wonders before your brain matures and develops into a less impressionable state. There was also that time I was four and completely obsessed with “Sleeping Beauty” (I must have watched it at least 500 times).  Maleficent was sooo fabulous!  I was really into science fiction and fantasy films.
If you could be anywhere in the world right now, at any point in time, where would you choose?
On set directing the next Ciara video.  Or maybe partying in ancient Greece with Jay-Z and Beyoncé.  Kanye can come too as long as he wears his “Power” outfit with that big ol’ chain.
What was the last song you listened to?
I be french montana from da da da block… French Montana – “Shot Caller”
http://www.grekosklavounos.com/

CREEP – Animals (feat Holly Miranda) from GREKOTV on Vimeo.

How much has your upbringing affected the work you produce today?
My upbringing has effected my photography a lot. I am always looking for a certain timeless beauty in my work, whether I am constructing a shot with a model in a scenery in a studio or lighting a model outside or just snapping in a documentary way. It always comes down to this same question for me. Is this going to be beautiful for years to come? And this I put down to my visiting the Louvre in Paris as a small child. Although I found it so boring at the time, almost like torture. I think the renaissance paintings embedded themselves in my psyche. These paintings, like classical music, are timelessly beautiful. I think this timelessness that I am searching for is also about a certain object beauty or universal beauty (truth?). That might come out of growing up and living in different cultures. I grew up in England, Kenya and France. I have lived since in Indonesia, Holland and now America.

What was your life like at university?
My life? I didn’t go to university I went to art school, but I guess that’s the same thing. It was really enlightening for me. It was like my own personal renaissance, but all that said I couldn’t wait to leave, I remember, which in hindsight is odd. I think I was a bit switched off and could have pushed myself harder.

When you left university and headed into the ‘real world’ how did you find life as a photographer?
I really wanted to be an art photographer. Do exhibitions and books, but like I said I didn’t push myself hard enough and so didn’t have a body of work that was either big enough or focussed enough for an exhibition. Then financial reality kicked in pretty quickly and I had to go and find work almost immediately. This was both frustrating and exciting. I always loved the reality of being paid for my work and the independence that money afforded me. I have always enjoyed working to a brief but hated being told what to do. 

Can you talk to us a little about the concept behind the fashion editorial ‘Memory’?
‘Memory’ is a series that was born out of this idea that the person you see as you mother now was this young attractive woman when you were a child, but in your memory this person doesn’t age. They just exist. You don’t question how they look. In fact all your emotional memories of your mother have no physical person attached. I just found that interesting. I guess it’s pretty fundamental to me and goes back to the Louvre in an abstract way. My parents separated when I was 6 and we had just moved to Paris. So a lot was going on emotionally and paintings were thrown in the mix…. So the series is about my mother and renaissance paintings.
I have a personal love for Famke Janssen so I have to know, what is she like?
An incredibly lovely but highly private person who seems to be madly in love with her dog. Do not ever ask her about her relationship status or sexual orientation! Don’t even hint at it.

You’ve photographed some pretty legendary people, which ones have you really enjoyed and who would you like to get in front of the camera?
I have enjoyed almost all of them. Johnny Depp was so kind, warm and funny yet extremely professional. He had this magnetic charisma… You immediately understood why he was a star actor. Oliver sacks was the most fascinating and love-able oddball. I would like to have president Obama and the Cohen brothers in front of my camera. Possibly at the same time!

You made some quite powerful images for the ‘cyber centinel’ what was it like working on that shoot?
That was a lot of fun but I was a little worried about the consequences of the imagery. Of the images being taken out of context. The children were my own children and a very good friends daughter. The porn couple were a real couple that I have worked with on other nude projects and are so cool with their nudity and sexuality. They have a lot of fun with it. I was kind of envious of them but at the same time doubtful I could ever be that free. I’m pretty uptight about my own nudity.
Tell us something you plan to do in 2012, something unrelated to your work.
I plan to rebuild my staircase at home and pave part of my back garden with left over bluestone from doing my sidewalk last autumn. I do most of this type of work myself with a helper. Not sure if the staircase is way beyond my skill level?

I try to finish a scene in neutral as much as I can, so that people can see and understand my drawing in their way.
How did you develop this style of drawing?
The style comes from strict rules I want to follow. I don’t want to talk about feelings I don’t know well. I don’t use colors that have no reason to be used. And I like to draw on small pieces of paper with simple tools because I think these are the only considerations I need. I like to think that this stubbornness makes my drawings unique.
I love the image of the one character sewing balloons onto the other, it’s as if he’s trying to lift the other’s body up to heaven…
When people want to help someone else in good will, it could be a burden on the others sometimes. I think I was trying to draw this situation.

It’s almost like a childlike perception of things that happen to us in our lives, what do you think to that?
When I accept my veiled childlike desires in relationships, it is helpful to understand myself well and to solve the problem. And I draw upon these childlike thoughts by drawing, because it’s not easy to express this to someone else in social life. I think people want to see this on my drawings.
 

Out of the series do you have a favorite image?
I scribble something on my notebook quickly when I have an idea. I like these sloppy drawings.

Your images have a lot of philosophical ground work don’t they, can you tell us a little about their relation to this?
Do you think so? I like to read books of philosophers who are from many different countries in many different eras, but I don’t want to put someone else’s idea into my drawing. And every time I tried to put some serious thought into my drawing, I cannot finish the work. If I want to go into the art market, I would need to explain about their relation.
http://www.moonassi.com/

How would you describe what kind of photographer you are and how you use photography?
I am that kind of photographer who always brings a camera with them, and I am always looking for interesting images. Once I forgot my camera when I saw “the perfect picture” and the anxiety I felt afterwards was terrible. So since then I always (always!) bring a camera. But all too often it stays in my bag.
In my job as a photographer I shoot both commercial and editorial stuff. I like all kind of missions but the best ones are when there are good conditions to make great stuff. Right now I really like to do story driven fashion stories similar to my personal photography. 

Out of all the locations you’ve shot in, which has been your favorite?
In Vanadisparken in Stockholm there is an abandoned water park that is very beautiful. It’s been abandoned for the last ten years and has a nice feeling of the 80s to it with turquoise concrete water slides and overgrown vegetation. I did a shoot there last summer.
What is winter like in Stockholm?
The last two winters there has been huge amounts of snow that stayed for the whole winter. But this winter there hasn’t been any snow at all. There’s a big difference in how Stockholm looks this winter compared to last year. It’s much darker now. People stay inside more than in the summer. I miss summer.
Who would you most like to photograph?
I have never thought of that question but I guess that it would be someone I admire, David Lynch maybe. But that mostly be so we could talk about Twin peaks.
Is your camera an extension of yourself, or a tool used to achieve tasks?
Definitely an extension of myself. As I said before, I don’t leave my apartment without a camera. Then of course it is a tool as well, but that sounds too boring.

The concept behind ‘Fashion story’ is really interesting, can you tell us a little about that.
The story is about a man that realized that he is just a slave of the one’s that decides the trends. He think of how much is really our own opinion? And why struggle to be unique when we’re not? This struggle I tried to illustrate in a series of five pictures. We see a man running in panic away from the city into the deep forest. At first he is dressed as a lumber jack (like if he was from Alaska, not at a bar in a big city) but in each picture, as he is getting farther away from the city, one piece in his outfit changes. In the last picture, when he has arrived to the deep cold forest (the right element for his starting outfit) his outfit has changed into something that belongs more in the city, where he started his journey. He has fought so hard to get away, to show himself that he is not just a piece in the big puzzle. But when he gets there he finds himself just to be the same way as the next man. This is shown as the environment has changed to its opposite, and so have his clothes, just like a mirror-world. But it is all pretty much the same. So why struggle so hard?

I often think that clothes are like our plumage. Humans don’t have fur or feathers to impress others with. We’re just covered in skin so we decorate ourselves with clothes to impress others, to communicate who we are. Do you think it’s a struggle to gain individual identity in modern society?
I think it is a struggle for the one’s that struggle. For the rest it is just what it is: Fashion. If you are fine with what music you listen to and wear the clothes you are wearing because of it, it’s fashion. Then there is no struggle.
http://www.gardsater.se/