Michael Zavros (b. 1974) graduated from Queensland College of Art with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 1996. Since graduating, he has worked as a sessional lecturer in painting and printmaking at the same institution. He has taken part in numerous group exhibitions including Primavera 2000 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Associazione ViaFarini (2003) in Milan and Uncanny (the unnaturally strange) (2005) in Auckland. His solo exhibitions include Everything I wanted (2003-2004) at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane and The Loved One (2003) at Sydney's Mori Gallery in 2003. Over the past five years Zavros has received many awards, grants and prizes. In 2001 he held the Australia Council Visual Arts/Craft Fund Milan Residency. The following year he won the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award. In 2003 he was awarded a Cite International des Arts Residency in Paris through the Power Institute, University of Sydney. In 2004 he was granted a residency at the Gunnery Studios, Sydney, from the NSW Ministry for the Arts and received the Primavera Collex Art Award through Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art. He held the VACF Barcelona Residency in 2005 and that year he won the Robert Jacks Drawing Prize through Bendigo Art Gallery. He was a finalist in the Archibald Prize in 2004 (with a portrait of dealer Stephen Mori and Win Schubert), 2005 and 2006 (with a self portrait). His work is represented in the collections of Artbank, Collex, ABN AMRO, Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Grafton Regional Art Gallery and the Tasmanian Museum and Gallery.
