Zach Morano
Third House Artist Spotlight
Interview by Danielle Batac
“I found out about Third House when my art was featured in MOLT, a group show that happened a while back. As soon as I showed up, I thought that the space was insanely cool and the community was great! Living in the valley, you sometimes feel very isolated from other areas of Los Angeles where there are established galleries and a more prominent art scene. Yet, Third House was here, carving their own identity and space that local artists like myself can come together and create. So I feel like when I got to Third House, there was this cool community, really great people and I just wanted to get involved. As soon as I saw the application for a studio residency space, I immediately jumped on it. I got it and I’ve been hanging here ever since!
Something I really appreciate about Third House is that there are always artists that are working here. Whenever I'm designing a flyer or a painting, I always have this team of artists that I can bounce ideas off of and get feedback and critique. As an artist in general, critique is such a huge thing, especially one that's constructive and encouraging — and this coalition of artists understands that. Third House is also a great spot too because there are so many tools that artists have here that I do not have myself, and I do not have the budget to get. Having a giant toolbox of anything I can think of right here and that I can use whenever is such a big deal for me. It's a space made by artists, for artists.”
Zach Morano is the newest resident artist at Third House Studios. A Buffalo, New York native, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue content creation through his graphic and communication design background. His boisterous and expressive style is reflective of his journey to evolve from traditional, constructive design. It explores movement and abstraction in a way that is surreal and nostalgic, yet bold and charismatic through mix media and collaging. One of his most recent pieces, The Lover, encapsulates this whimsical and alternative nature through oil pastel.
“I wanted to combine my thought process as a collage, mix media designer and abstract painter. I made the base layer an abstract expressionist painting and I made separate illustrations of these beautiful bees with oil pastel. My strategy was to cut them out and paste them on to the canvas to make it feel like a collage, but it’s still very expressive and rooted in movement. It has ties to my old identity as a graphic designer, but as someone who has now grown older and evolved through that process and has become more experienced. I’m now able to find new solutions to things: break certain rules and manipulate compositions, in exciting, experimental ways.”
Morano draws much of his inspiration from archival photos, old concept art books, and his childhood media. He practices finding media that he was very passionate about as a kid — tracking down any sort of artbook or manual guides to use for inspiration. He cites Club Penguin as one such interest, as it was one of the first experiences he had playing a game that was artistically cohesive. It was authentic and weird in an atypical design that he draws on in his work, combining it with the visual language of modern art and abstraction. Morano is also a big fan of graffiti and skate culture, and how artists who are part of that community create a unique identity through their own tags and signatures. This alternative scene draws heavily on movement and expression that influences Morano’s body of work.
Check out Morano on instagram @zachmorano and follow @1111.projects and @thirdhousestudios_vannuys for more artist spotlights, events, and news!
Danielle Batac is the LAC Arts Intern for 11:11 Projects. She's been absolutely crushing the social media coverage of 11:11 and Third House, helping mentor the BAI high school students, and making art in the studio. She is currently studying animation at CSUN.
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