An Interview with Local Artist Anthony Zummo

I was walking the streets of Huntington a few weeks ago when I saw onthe side of a building a painting with a roughly inscribed “Free Art, Take Me” sign placed on top of it. After pulling the piece from the wall, that had been so thoughtfully attached with velcro tape, I noticed on the back the artist, Anthony Zummo, had listed a site and facebook page where I could find more of his artwork. After a few facebook messages, the artist agreed to sit with me for a short interview to talk about himself, his passion and what drives him to create.

Keep Long Island Boring: Who are you and what do you do?

Anthony Zummo: My name is Anthony Zummo, I’m originally from West Babylon, New York but I reside in Sayville. I am a conceptual based artist and I’m self taught. I originally started off in graphic design, I went to school for that, but decided to focus on my passion for painting 3 years ago, and basically I just focused on that avenue of creativity ever since.

KLIB: Why do you do what you do?

AZ: I do what I do, because in the beginning it was more of a release, like an expression-a bit of therapy for me-to kind of counter all the messages and news related articles that were being pushed into my life without my control. So, it was my way of talking back. That’s a lot of why my subject matter is more serious and socially based; to kind of focus on my opinion of the same topics that are probably brought up in popular news stories. It’s really just my voice.

KLIB: How did you start making art and why?

AZ: I think a lot of self taught artists started when we could pick up something to draw with and over time, even though I didn’t focus on the hands-on kind of art, I’ve always flocked toward creativity and expression. Just using paints and brushes and being more hands-on, it feels more renaissance in a way; it feels more natural to be part of it, rather than having a computer that you can click undo if you screw up.

KLIB: Where do you draw most of your inspiration from?

AZ: News. The world. Current Events. That’s mainly what I’ve been focusing on lately, there’s too much in the world to actually ignore so there’s inspiration everywhere.

KLIB: I’ve noticed that a lot of your work features pop images that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing regularly, mixed with dystopian themes like gas masks. What does the combination signify to you?

AZ: For me, there’s a meaning that the idea of celebrity has been morphed into something that’s more toxic than it ever was. I think the 5 minutes of fame that every reality  star aims for is just a misleading celebrity status that the younger people in developmental stages might view and they might not see the irony in it, they might not see the humor in it, they’re still developing. To me, the messages being put out, whether they’re serious or not, are being absorbed into young minds and they might take it seriously. So for a young girl to have watched the Jersey Shore, it’s not the same result of a young kid in the early 90’s first seeing the Real World. It has a similar basis, but I think it’s morphed into something more toxic. So that’s where the gas masks come in, as an update to the popular offenses of yesterday. I think people need to really go back to trying to understand who they are, appreciating that they’re different from everyone else and find their own inter personal inner celebrity and just be satisfied with what they have.

KLIB: Do you have a favorite artist, and what draws you to that person’s work?

AZ: I have many favorite artists of different mediums. I mean Salvador Dali, which I know, everyone says that they love Salvador Dali, but I really do because of the mind altering techniques that he has. You can look at something for 10 minutes and then realize you’re looking at something different, and it just pops out to you once it clicks in your head. And that kind of symbolizes life. It’s like, our realities are dependent on our perspective, so whatever we see might not be really what is being expressed form its origin. So Dali always reminded me of that, what we’re looking at might not exactly be what’s really there.

KLIB: How do you know when a work is finished?

AZ: That is a good question. I don’t. I really don’t. Hmm, when it’s sold. That’s the best answer I can give, because if I keep it, I mean I have pieces, that are about 15 years old. I have one where I started where I was just about 15 for like a therapy thing, and it has ridiculous amounts of layers of paintings under it. That was the first painting I actually did but I never tried to get it into a gallery, I never tried to impress anyone. I felt at the time that it was a bit of a joke to try to fit in and I just kept it for myself in my room forever. But now I’ve grown up and it’s like well, shit, It’d be nice to sell something. So yeah I guess when it’s sold.

KLIB: What is the most important tool? Is there something you cant live without?

AZ: Coffee [laughs]. I’ve found myself drawing with remnants of charcoal, but as long as I have the coffee I can continue to work.

KLIB: Can you talk about your Free Art in the Streets campaign?

AZ: Back two and a half years ago, I used to watch the BBC, because I enjoyed seeing the world news, and there was a report on Free Art Friday that was started by an artist called My Dog Sighs in England, and they did this entire report on him and a small crew of people that would put out this character on the streets.I thought it was a brilliant idea to kind of recycle, and give back to the community without a price tag, and also get your own promotion out of it, and no one here was really doing it, so I just started doing it with any flat surface to paint. I mean, if it doesn’t cost me anything at all, I was just expressing the idea out, then there was really no reason not to do it. So, I started doing that for a year, and then I ended up accidentally becoming friends with My Dog Sighs on Facebook and we started talking about it and now its been another year and a half, and its networked me with England. On the 30th, I actually have a piece in a London show, so its networked me with England, just from me doing Free Art Friday here. It’s really helped me get the word out, and I try to tell as many artists that I know to just do it, if you have extra paint left over, and you have an extra piece of cardboard on the floor, make an abstract, put your name on it and put it out and someone will appreciate it, and in you’ll get something in return from that. It’s just a positive way to put your name out there. Plus no one can complain because I’m not spray painting on their wall

KLIB: What role does the artist have in society?

AZ: I think the artist has a huge role in society, and a lot of people underestimate it. In a broad scale, would we have currency if we didn’t have artists to design it?  I mean, we fit in every society, we fit in every crowd and we can blend in anywhere, we can voice opinions visually. I think as artists, we’re not just subject to still paintings, like, I think there are filmmakers that are artists. I think without artists, the world would be a dull place and I think that the world would also be one sided. There are a lot of artists that don’t agree with one another but they’re all out there, voicing their opinions. I think we play Devil’s Advocate more than anyone else on earth.

KLIB: Have you had any memorable responses to your work?

AZ: There have been a few for the free art that have really blown my mind. I put a Hunter Thompson piece in front of Radio City Music Hall and this tourist-y couple wrote back to me the same day that they discovered it. And when I was in Halifax, because I had stayed there for 6 months, I did a free art piece up there and a week later I got a photo of a car, on this desolate highway, and the piece is in the rear window parked on the side of the road. The guy messaged me saying that “I got your piece in Halifax, and I’m driving back across the entire country of Canada with your piece in my window” and he said people were honking at him and cheering at it. And that was probably the coolest one.

“Someone copied it, so that’s how I know it gained some success.” says Zummo, “It’s [part of the feature] on paranoid schziophrenia, which is why I was trying to tie all the gas masks in.”

“This one spawned because it ties in the romanticism of obsession. It’s not typically labelled obsession if both parties are involved, then it’s “love”…But the fact that they were both able to commit suicide because of it, like I was looking past the romantic aspect of it. It’s technically two underage teenagers who want to be together, but can’t be so they killed themselves. That would be all over CNN.”

“Yeah this is kind of a frustrating topic…what they reported was, in some of the places where it’s illegal to whale, the Japanese were getting away with it by writing ‘Research’ on their vessel, so it looked like a research vessel. If it’s a research vessel, you’re allowed to slaughter 1,000 whales a year, and they were doing it under the ‘research loophole’, even though there was no research that they were doing.”

“This, came from when I heard about what was happening in London with the anti-homeless spike strips, and I was like this is the craziest thing I ever heard in my life. I did this immediately.”

One unique feature of Zummo’s art gallery is that his paintings are grouped by themes, and then further contextualized with an accompanying QR code. He hopes that the information provided by the QR link [pictured: paranoid schizophrenia] will add further depth to the display

“I like doing three dimensional pieces, so it feels as though it gives someone who may have experienced it in the past, that understanding. They can say, yeah I’ve felt like that where I wish I could have escaped from reality.”

After going over a lot of the images that dealt with negative aspects of society, Zummo then directed me to this wall here. “I decided that I was going to have a palette cleansing wall that would show some of the people in the world that tried to change it for the better.”

If you want to catch more from Anthony Zummo, you can check out his instagram feed here, like him on facebook, or check out his art exhibition this Saturday at 7:00 at The Ripe Art Gallery.