On view now at the historic Neutra VDL House in Los Angeles, “The Sky Between Us” presents new, site-specific works by John Zabawa that invite viewers to experience Los Angeles through the artist’s nostalgic lens. Having called LA home for the past eight years, John Zabawa revisits his earliest impressions of the city—images that remain as vivid and resonant today as when he first arrived.
His paintings move between interior and exterior scenes—panoramic vistas of the San Gabriel Mountains at golden hour, bowls of mandarins resting on kitchen tables, eucalyptus leaves by an open window, waves breaking at daybreak—forming a visual archive that is at once romantic and grounded. Installed within Richard Neutra’s former residence—an architectural landmark designed to dissolve boundaries between indoors and out—the exhibition deepens a dialogue between painting, place, and lived experience.
John Zabawa on Working Within an Icon
John Zabawa, Installation view of “The Sky Between Us.” Courtesy of the artist and Francis Gallery.
WHITEWALL: “The Sky Between Us” brings together memory, observation, and place. How did your earliest impressions of Los Angeles shape the emotional tone of these new paintings, and what surprised you about how those first images have endured over time?
JOHN ZABAWA: I lived in Chicago for over a decade, and moving to Los Angeles created a seismic shift in my life. I wasn’t accustomed to the lifestyle, weather, or culture. The most enduring memories of my early time in Los Angeles were those spent along the coast and near the ocean. The sound of waves crashing against the shore, the sun glistening off the sand, the smell of salty ocean air. I’ve lived in landlocked areas all of my life and being so close to the Pacific Ocean offered a new perspective for my work. I called upon those memories when I started working on this show, which flooded back to me more easily than I would have expected.
“Moving to Los Angeles created a seismic shift in my life.”
-John Zabawa.
WW: Many of the works move fluidly between interior and exterior scenes. What draws you to that threshold—windows, tables, doorways—and how do those in-between spaces function in your understanding of lived experiences.
JZ: These motifs are found in the backdrops of my surroundings. I spend a lot of time in the studio and domesticity is a common theme for painters. I find these ‘in-between’ motifs interesting to paint for the transient mystery they carry. These motifs give hints that something more exists beyond what you can see; the hall beyond the doorway or the shadow behind a corner of a table. Often in painting, you are trying to give life to what will lie within the foreground. With these motifs and my understanding of ‘Ma’, I use them to activate the negative space in my painting.
WW: This exhibition is deeply responsive to its setting at Neutra VDL House. How did working within Richard Neutra’s former home shift your thinking about scale, light, and intimacy?
JZ: The Neutra VDL house is an iconic symbol of California architecture. To me, this home invites the outside in, and is a reminder that life is meant to be lived outside of the walls of a home. What makes the home so special, most notably the vast expanse of glass windows and open spaces, is also what makes it logistically challenging when thinking about displaying artwork within the home for an exhibition. With less wall space for a show than a painter might be used to, I had to think about size and challenged myself to work on a smaller scale than I normally would. As for the light, the light in the Neutra house is the light of Los Angeles, which is yellow. Everything’s yellow.
Domesticity and the Myth of LA
John Zabawa, “Breaking Waves.” Courtesy of the artist and Francis Gallery.
John Zabawa, “Lemons and Letters.” Courtesy of the artist and Francis Gallery.
WW: The show was organized by Francis Gallery, which often places work in domestic environments. How does exhibiting in an inhabited, residential space affect the way you imagine viewers encountering your paintings?
JZ: Exhibiting in a residential space allows viewers to feel more familiarity and comfort in their experience with the artwork. Hopefully, if the viewer feels more at ease in the space, it’ll allow them to become more engaged with the show. On the other hand, you have to work even harder to create impactful work, as you’re competing for the viewer’s attention within a quotidian yet unfamiliar setting.
WW: Still lifes—a bowl of mandarins, eucalyptus by an open window—sit alongside expansive landscapes. What role do these quieter, domestic moments play in constructing your broader portrait of the city?
JZ: I didn’t start painting still-lifes until I moved to Los Angeles. Southern California has an incredible array of flora and vegetation and having it so readily available has naturally made its way into my paintings. The lemon is my depiction of Los Angeles. It represents my life living here. The warm yellow color of a lemon radiates like the sun which reminds me of the light in LA. Fruit is just like a person. We spend our early lives growing on the vine, taking in nourishment from the earth and then one day, we fall into reality as a hardened shell of a body. A peel that protects us from the harsh terrain of our environment.
One Sky, Shared Space
John Zabawa, “Shoreline.” Courtesy of the artist and Francis Gallery.
John Zabawa, “The wrapping cloth.” Courtesy of the artist and Francis Gallery.
WW: The exhibition title suggests a focus on distance and connection. What does “The Sky Between Us” mean to you personally—as a painter, and as someone who has made Los Angeles home?
JZ: It possesses a poetry or philosophical mantra in its meaning. It reminds me of the haikus written by poets like Basho, Yoko Ono, Gary Snyder, and Kaigen. It carries both the expansive vastness of space, but the intimate commonality we all share living under one sky.
“These paintings are the lived experience I’ve had in Los Angeles.”
-John Zabawa
WW: Your work often feels both deeply specific and powerfully universal. When painting Los Angeles, are you consciously thinking about a shared viewer experience, or are these scenes primarily private acts of remembering?
JZ: I never think of the viewer and how they might experience my paintings when I’m creating my work. These paintings are the lived experience I’ve had in Los Angeles, recalling the last 8 years of my life. What I do hope to do is share a glimpse into some of the impactful experiences that have shaped my life. Hopefully the viewer feels what it was like to stand 8,000 feet above sea level on a mountaintop overlooking the entire Sequoia National Park as the sun sets, drive along Highway 1 surrounded by the endless golden fur-like hills of the Central Coast, or listen to the sounds of waves crashing against the cliffs in Big Sur, as Kerouac once wrote.
VDL House. Photo by Rich Stapleton. Courtesy of Francis Gallery
