KiS: You have always worked with different media and techniques. Do you choose these for the motifs of your pictures or certain series of works?

MZ: I have in mind that a work is something like a house: with different floors, different rooms and different views. That's why there are initially three media - photography, painting and drawing - and all kinds of subgroups within them. In photography, for example, there are those that accompany me through the day like a haiku, and analogue photos, such as double exposures. A third group is film stills. As a passionate film viewer, I have an extensive film collection. When I watch a film, I make notes about what corresponds to my work. Then the film is stopped and the image is photographed.

The most important and numerically largest group is drawing. It is the basis for many things, even for many photographs. For painting, it's the be-all and end-all. When I have an idea, I sketch it out. It's quick, uncomplicated and easy. You can also change ideas again and make pans. The next step is usually watercolour sheets, and now and again - if I feel I want to take it further - I paint an oil painting on canvas or in a very small format on paper. With the landscapes, I used to have the feeling that they needed a certain format - 1.50 or 1.60 metres - but I now do that less often.

In addition to the different media, there is also a wide stylistic range. These include „realistic“ paintings such as the still lifes, the flower paintings and the very important group of landscapes. They are not created one after the other, but often with long pauses in between.

Then it also goes over into the abstract. A very important series is „from you to me“, in which I deal with the art of the Far East. Similar to Goethe's „West-Eastern Divan“, I expand my treasure trove of forms by taking inspiration from Indian, Chinese and Japanese sculpture and painting. In this group of works, which I began almost thirty years ago, there are many playful, open, almost abstract works.

Behind all of this is the idea of different perspectives. The development doesn't just go in one direction, it's elliptical. I pick up groups again that I left behind ten or twenty years ago, and it is important to me to also organise exhibitions with older works. I'm always looking to see how different groups intertwine anew or inspire me to do something new.

KiS: You say that the drawing is rather quick and fleeting. How long do you work on such pictures?

MZ: It can take over a year from the initial idea to the finished picture - even in the case of a drawing. The drawings I exhibit are often a drawing of a drawing of a drawing. At first I tend to scribble on the page, and when it reaches a certain density, I make another drawing of it. Sometimes things change: men become women, the drawing is turned upside down or something is erased. The result, sometimes the tenth sheet I produce, is often very delicate and restrained. I destroy most of the ones in between.

KiS: How do you choose your motifs? Why do certain landscapes, flowers or reclining figures inspire you to capture them in a picture?

MZ: Ultimately, my work is a bit autobiographical. I don't follow through with a project, it has to happen. The first landscapes, for example, were created when I was with my parents-in-law in Upper Austria and went for long walks. These landscapes are also part of my experience. In the same way, still lifes emerge from the things that accumulate in my studio. At some point I add something to it and think to myself that it could become a drawing or a still life. It grows out of my experience, I do it because it gives me pleasure. Whether it is a good picture or has value for someone else will become clear. For me, the working process itself is an important, intensive time that grounds and sustains me.

The flower paintings are a good example of this: it's not just about painting the flowers, but finding them, arranging them, looking at them and living with them ... I often went flower picking with my grandfather as a child. We'd say: „Now we're going to make a bouquet for grandma or mum“, and he'd show me how to arrange flowers. You shouldn't emphasise it too much because it sounds too sentimental, but I want to conjure up this lost childhood feeling, these beautiful experiences in the countryside, for myself and for others.

So the pictures are not created out of strategic considerations or because I think that's what's missing on the art market. It's nice when a picture succeeds, but it's not the main thing for me.

KiS: „Precision combined with fleetingness. Show everything, reveal nothing. For me, drawing means getting behind the mirror.“ This quote of yours has awakened the association in me that you have to be able to see very well, to perceive very well. How do you learn to see?

MZ: By simply looking at an incredible amount. I started going to museums and exhibitions regularly when I was twelve or thirteen, and I started painting very early on. The one leads to the other: the practical activity, but also the seeing.

You can only judge a picture by comparing it with other pictures. As a painter, draughtsman and photographer, I ultimately compare myself and my work with all the pictures I have created so far. Botho Strauß once said: „You write under the supervision of everything you have ever written.“ When I do something, the past looks over my shoulder. And this art history in the background inspires and inhibits me at the same time.

In 2020, I found myself in a crisis due to illness. You think: „What else can I do now?“ And then there were three flowers on the table and I thought: „If I close my eyes and think there's one more picture I could do, then maybe it's this flower picture.“ There's something very existential about that. I put aside the question of whether it was important for art history. But for me it was so necessary or so fulfilling to wipe everything away, to wipe the slate clean, to make this flower painting and see what would come of it.