Zachary Benson Friedberg’s paintings feel like if Barbie’s Dreamhouse had an intergalactic makeover. Neon greens, pinks, blues and yellows drip out of the canvas with a psychedelic splash. Zach’s tentacled friends, better known as Explorers, open up portals, inviting viewers from across time, space and dimensions to a mid-century modern pool party in a galaxy far far away. Each of his vibrant paintings seem to almost scream into the cosmic void demanding to be acknowledged as we, alongside all of the other cosmic entities, are lead to a place where we can revel in speczacular works of art.
Zachary Benson Friedberg, known better online as “Speczacular” is a self-taught American artist who uses highly opaque florescent paint to create vibrant works that explore themes of escapism and the unknown. His current body of work focuses on exploring representations of mid-century modern architecture and the aesthetics of the Southern California lifestyle with an alien explorer twist in alternate dimensions and far away futures where space travel is finally realised.
Zach is currently represented by La Luz de Jesus Gallery where he’ll be hosting his newest exhibition ‘Yesterday’s Tomorrow’ from 5th December 2025.
The unknown represents curiosity, imagination, and possibility. As individuals, humans are born with an innate sense of wonder in the world around us. Because everything is unknown to us as children, even a quotidian experience can be an awe inspiring discovery.
Interview with Zachary Benson Friedberg
Your current body of work explores the unknown and escapism, I’d love to learn more about what these topics mean to you as an artist and your journey so far exploring these themes!
The unknown represents curiosity, imagination, and possibility. As individuals, humans are born with an innate sense of wonder in the world around us. Because everything is unknown to us as children, even a quotidian experience can be an awe inspiring discovery. While we age and the gravity of responsibilities build up, this lens for viewing life can become clouded. We may clean the lens, but it tends to take greater effort and occur with less frequency as time goes on. As a species, the unknown represents infinitely more than the sum of our collective knowledge, yet most of us float through life distracted from this incredible fact.
As a thematic element in my paintings, the unknown is intended to pull people out of the monotony of everyday life. Recognising the infinite wonder of the world around us can reconnect us to our youthful interest in discovery or at least bring our attention fully into the present moment.
Escapism provides a temporary respite from the most taxing parts of our daily lives by focusing our attention on imagery that evokes wonder, happiness, and relaxation. Everyone’s default state of mind is chaos, which makes life challenging enough to balance our complex professional, familial, social, and physical obligations.
The external world vies for our precious attention and we are hardly aware of the equally distracting and tumultuous voices from within. It is no wonder the concept of a vacation to disconnect, unwind, and relax is so alluring. It is absolutely essential to find ways to reset your mental and emotional attention without depending on infrequent and costly vacations. Fortunately, anyone can find brief moments of escape if confronted with the appropriate stimulus.
To create escapism in my paintings, I employ nostalgia and southern Californian imagery through fantastic and surreal scenes conveyed with uplifting, bright, and vibrant colours. I paint scenes that I would like to visit and the exercise of imagining myself in the painting helps me capture a transient sense of escape.
Your work aims to capture the fun feelings of the Southern California aesthetic and lifestyle, how has this culture influenced you and your work and where do you look to most for inspiration within this culture?
I’ve been fortunate to live most of my life (so far) in cities near the coast of California that many people either dream of visiting or only get to experience for short periods of time on vacation. It seems inevitable that the environment would have seeped into my visual aesthetic.
My primary influences come from the sense of relaxation and escape I experience around the beach and exploring neighborhoods in my favorite towns in Southern California – such as Palm Springs. No matter what frame of mind I am in, I can recapture a sense of tranquility by experiencing these places. This is why so many of my paintings feature mid century modern homes, pools/jacuzzis, and landscaping found in the most serene neighbourhoods across Southern California.
Part of my mandatory mental health routine involves a weekly visit to the beach with my wife and son (currently 2 years old), which is even more valuable now that I can see these places through the eyes of a child literally experiencing everything for the first time.
How do you approach painting a new body of work? Do you have a creative routine you like to follow?
When developing the concept for a new body of work, I free up as much of my painting time as possible to do nothing other than think about the whole collection. This time involves brainstorming and seeking inspiration. I visit places that bring me peace, read books on art or architecture, and find new experiences that spark inspiration. I keep an ongoing list of ideas and sketch crude thumbnails of those ideas that I find most interesting.
Once I settle on my direction, I follow a very regimented process of design and execution. All of my paintings begin as digital illustration where I can experiment with composition and colour before moving to paint. I print each digital illustration for use as a colour reference. Next I transfer the illustration to a wood panel or canvas and hang it on my studio wall.
Most, if not the entire series, will be sketched and up on the wall before I begin painting. I approach each painting like an assembly line of colour, applying one colour at a time to every painting containing that colour, until all colours are blocked in. After signing the finished painting I apply a thick high gloss epoxy resin coating.
While I paint, music is always playing to suit my mood or help me focus.
I love the tentacled creatures/aliens that show up throughout much of your work, can you tell me a bit about these creatures and the roles they play within your paintings?
They are called Explorers and they have evolved with the natural ability to open portals to distant space and alternate dimensions. In my paintings they serve two purposes.
First, they are the physical manifestation of the unknown. A human seeing the sky give way to a portal with a large tentacled creature emerging from within is sure to snap them out of their monotonous daily routine. I like to imagine what I would think and feel if I were in the painting when an Explorer’s emergence occurs.
Second, they provide a figurative element experiencing the scene. Their expressions, actions, or presence remind the viewer to take in the world anew with curiosity, excitement, and contentment.
What do you hope people can take away with them after viewing your work?
Viewing art is a very personal and subjective experience, so I try not to presuppose exactly what a viewer will take away, however I do have some very high level objectives. At a minimum, I hope viewers will have a positive reaction and walk away happier, more curious, relaxed, or inspired as a result. I’d also hope the vibrant colors inspire people to bring more bold and uplifting colour into the world around them. Beyond that, it is wonderful if they build their own narratives around my work and take away their own personal meaning and messages.
If the child version of you could see you now, what do you think they’d say/think about you and your art?
“Wow, I made all of that art and people around the world display it in their homes?”
I loved creative projects as a child and was always making some sort of artwork no matter how rough and primitive it came out. Childhood Zach would love to know that he would grow up to create the artwork I make, but would be very surprised by its precision. Seeing my artwork would have inspired him to make far more art and would have likely resulted in him pursuing a formal art education.
When you’re not painting what do you get up to in your free time?
Exploring the wonderful sights in Southern California, which I noted earlier. Listening to music, playing guitar, and going to concerts – my taste in music is eclectic but I am first and foremost a metalhead. I love to read science fiction and fantasy to unwind, and spark thought and imagination. However, all of my personal interests currently take a backseat to my spending as much time with my son as possible. It is endlessly inspiring to witness a child develop, learn, and explore the world.
I understand that you have an exhibition coming up in December with La Luz de Jesus Gallery, can you tell our readers a bit about what you have in store for visitors?
The exhibit is titled ‘Yesterday’s Tomorrow’ and every painting features a googie style diner that was actually built in Southern California between 1949-1965 and (except for one diner) has since been demolished to make way for dull contemporary development contributing to the homogeneous urban landscape. These buildings represent the mid-century’s optimistic vision of a Space Age future. My paintings reimagine these classic buildings as spaceside attractions floating among a cosmic backdrop. By taking buildings that no longer exist and placing them in a fantastic setting that is unattainable, I am striving to capture a feeling of anemoia.
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