While art never occurred to Zombo as a possible tertiary pursuit, drawing has been a huge part of his life since his schooldays. “I did a fair few pieces at school and people encouraged me to develop [them],” he recalls. “So I got serious and made a mural, and I pretty much decided from then on that I was just going to do that for the rest of my life. It was just one of those things that I thought, ‘Maybe one day I’ll have that many [pieces] that I’ll be surrounded by my own fantasy world.’” Although It took over half his life, Zombo laughs, “and I guess I am now.”
For Mark, his art was never a matter of professional accolade or recognition, but personal amusement and, unexpectedly, control. “It just seems like a worthwhile thing to me,” he explains, “because it’s the one thing in my life that I have complete control over as opposed to say, playing music, where you are always having to share your ideas. [Drawing] is something that I’ve just done for myself.”
Now after working in solitude for so long, his entire and complete collection stands at what sounds like a minimal 17 pieces; because it can take Mark up to four years to finish one piece. The length of time that it takes to complete one piece is admittedly partially due to the fact that Zombo has been “caught up in the music world” for so many years, but it is also the intense, immense amount of detail and patience each artwork requires. Working with fine tip pens, pencils and everyone’s favourite, the humble biro, it only takes a glance at one of Zombo’s intricate works to understand where the time goes. And, he adds, “How do you finish a piece? It’s a white piece of board and I have to satisfactorily finish it from one end to the other. However long it takes is however long it takes; if it’s going to take two years to finish that piece then I’m quite prepared to commit to that.”
The artwork really does speak for itself, but seeing as this is an article about it, my words will have to try and do some of the talking. Zombo’s drawings are busy and involved. The viewers’ eyes are pulled in every direction at once, and it’s too easy to get lost in your involuntary search of a gothic and psychobilin-fuelled Wally. The earlier works are particularly aggressive: mutilated bodies and rogue pieces of anatomy sprinkling the canvas. Mark concedes, “The artwork definitely follows an arc. The early stuff I have is a lot more disturbing to look at. In my younger years I experienced a lot of depression and I was quite a cynical person and you can see that in the art – there’s a lot of exploitative and violent imagery in the early stuff.” But gradually, piece by piece, figurative light and literal colour began drowning out the doom and gloom. “After getting that out of my system it’s become more pure images, straight out of the head, and it’s not quite as negative as it used to be. But yeah it’s definitely… some of it is quite full on.”
Full on enough, in fact, that Zombo’s work has featured on the covers of punk rock albums over the years. It’s a community that is very familiar to Mark, having been in a number of bands himself. His relocation to Melbourne was initially the result of his music. “I moved out here [from Perth] with my band in 2000, but the band I was in at the time fell apart,” he remembers. But he’s happy, and ready, to make the switch from musician to artist. “I’ve used my artwork for music, but I think it’s time to sort of let the artwork go off on its own now. There’s enough artwork there for it to become its own entity.”
And with a book deal with a US publishing company on the horizon, Zombo feels like the time to push his art outside the world of punk rock album covers is nigh. “I’d like people [outside the punk rock world] to know a bit more about who I am before I go and do anything like a book; it’s a bit arrogant to come out of nowhere with a book,” he laughs. As for whether what they say about Melbourne being Australia’s best artistic platform is true, Mike optimistically shrugs, “I guess I’ll find out.”
BY KATE MCCARTEN
