Zak Last Contemporary Artist.

​​​

Zak (b. 1972, Leeds) is a contemporary artist based in Lancashire, England, working
predominantly with oil paints on canvas and canvas paper. His paintings are carefully
crafted from the ground up—each oil on canvas piece is built on a bespoke, hand-made
pine frame, stretched with cotton canvas, and traditionally sized to honour the heritage of
the medium. All of Zak’s original oil paintings are created from life or direct observation. Drawing is the
foundation of every painting, a discipline that underpins his ability to capture fleeting
moments with clarity and sensitivity. Often working en plein air, he immerses himself in the
landscapes, objects, and atmospheres he paints, allowing light, colour, form, and
movement to be not only seen but felt.
Zak works across canvas, canvas paper, and hardboard—each surface inviting a different
approach. Oils on canvas allow him to build up layers of texture, creating depth and a
tactile surface that borders on the sculptural. Canvas paper lends itself to speed and
spontaneity, while hardboard offers the practicality required for outdoor work. Together,
these practices give his paintings a dynamic range, from expressive surface textures to
delicate washes of oil.
Beyond the technical, Zak’s work is driven by a profound engagement with the overlooked
and the everyday. His series Thrown Away Traces, Scars and Seeds explores the poetics of
abandonment, resilience, and renewal. Through discarded objects—a mask on a wire
fence, a drinks can in a river, a pot noodle container in a salt marsh—Zak transforms
remnants of modern life into meditations on memory, vulnerability, and ecological fragility.
More recently, his Seeds of Hope works turn toward regeneration and connection. A
triptych of a hummingbird hawkmoth feeding on verbena flowers, planted in his own
garden, signals this shift—celebrating the quiet acts of care that help nature endure. For
Zak, the scar and the seed coexist: art is both a witness to damage and a gesture toward
restoration.
Alongside these explorations, Zak is developing a series of local landscapes and
international works from Spain and France. These paintings are focused on perspective
and vibrant colour, capturing the energy of place through dynamic compositions and the
play of light across architectural and natural forms. Together, they extend his practice into
a celebration of space, depth, and vitality.
Through his practice, Zak balances observation with interpretation, decay with renewal,
and realism with poetry. His paintings are at once records of lived experience and
meditations on the deeper relationships between people, objects, and the environments
they inhabit.

​