Diva Zappa

Diva Zappa is the youngest daughter of the late-Frank Zappa, and is arguably the most exotically named (Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen Zappa). She is best known on these shores for her cameo as Howard Moon’s love interest in a classic episode of The Mighty Boosh, but she is a well-respected artist and actress in her homeland. This week, her debut London exhibition Bruce opens in Soho’s oldest patisserie, Maison Bertaux, and it’s a gorgeously diverting evocation of what the artist describes as her interest in whimsy – featuring a sparkling site-specific installation of her beguiling embroidered artworks. Over early morning tea John-Paul Pryor talked to the modest daughter of one of rock’s most productive legends about self-schooling, glimmer and the importance of maintaining an open heart.

“I can’t help making stuff. My hands are literally always making something. I love colour and how colours react in light, so I want to play with them in my hands. I sometimes act and do rock photography but I’m most passionate about my knitting and my embroidery. The pieces I make are basically diaries; every piece has the emotions and feelings in them that I experience when I am making them. I’ll often have a plan for something but I’ll never know exactly what I’m making when I'm making it – there is a dress in this show that my friend Chloe wore to the Grammies and it actually started off life as a scarf. It said, ‘No. You’re not making a scarf. Turn left, pick up all these stitches and grow it this way!’ I don’t ever have a pattern in mind that I go for. They just make themselves. I’m like a conduit. It all sort of just beams in and comes to life. I guess a work ethic is the one thing my father instilled in all of his kids – we can’t help but be productive, we can’t help but make things. My dad was always working and he was circular in the way he did things, and that’s also what I do. I can have six different pieces that I’m working on at the same time. People think that growing up must have been crazy but it wasn’t, my father’s only vices were coffee and cigarettes. The only thing different was that I wouldn’t go to school. I wore knots in my hair and I would get picked on so my dad made a deal with me that if I didn’t go to school, I had to read the encyclopaedia. This is the biggest show I have done so far, and my hope is that you walk in and you feel soothed, or you feel a sense of whimsy – you know, like you don’t know what’s going on but somehow your heart is hugged? People are so afraid to show their heart and be open but when you are little you don’t know to be protective – you are open, you see sparkles, and you see laughter you bounce around. It gets pounded into you that you’re not supposed to show your heart, and that you should hide it from people and make it so that someone has to dig to find your heart and be connected to you. I don’t believe in that. I’m here and present and I want sparkles everywhere. I want to inspire a little bit off happiness and glimmer and shock your heart. I want you to feel like, ‘Wow, there’s magic in here!’”

Text by John-Paul Pryor

Bruce exhibits from February 4 – June 1 at Maison Bertaux Gallery, London, W1D 5DQ