Being Monsieur Zohore: A Recipe

Monsieur Zohore, Sandy if you’re nasty, is your friendly neighborhood internationally renowned artist. It’s about time RVA got to know him. If you’re lucky enough to have attended his painting class at VCU, or if you find yourself in the cooler corners of Richmond’s nightlife on the regular, then you already know. He’s the tall, dark-skinned, immaculately-styled main attraction in any room he exists in, but where’s he coming from, and what is he about? 

Unluckily for my intention to have one of our long, meandering, and deep conversations interview-style for this publication, he was in Berlin. Which means I had to send him questions via email, and there’s only so many page inches in which to digress. Here’s what I thought to ask him in absentia. I have so many follow-ups though…

Editor note: This conversation happened back in the fall of 2024 for our print issue that was pushed back into 2025. 

There are a million paths to being an artist. Which one was yours? What’s your backstory? 

You’ll have to wait for the memoir—or the inevitable movie starring Lupita Nyong’o—for the full story. But here’s the short version: New York was my Mahogany moment—glamorous, dizzying, and ultimately, a little too much. One minute you’re twirling around in a fabulous outfit, the next, you’re trying to scrape hot wax off your arms and wondering why you thought this was a good idea.

After that, I headed to Baltimore for grad school, which was like stepping into a John Waters film—queer, campy, and just absurd enough to feel like home. Baltimore’s the kind of place where you can be completely over-the-top, and no one bats an eye. It’s where I learned to mix the ridiculous with the profound, to use camp as a way to make something that’s both funny and serious. If New York was all about the performance, Baltimore was about letting the weirdness shine through.

Before that, there was Cooper Union, which was more like The Hunger Games than Fame. The odds were never in my favor, and every project felt like an audition to survive another day. But it toughened me up, made me realize that if you can dodge a critique, you can dodge anything.

Are there any specific aesthetic themes that you return to naturally? 

I’ve got this ongoing preoccupation with transfiguration—think Jesus or Professor McGonagall. I’m really into how things like consumption and digestion mirror these deeper transformations we all go through. It’s not just about food, but how we digest experiences, emotions, life itself. My aesthetic? It’s a bit of a mixed bag—cleverness with a side of sinister undertones, and always with this heartbreaking depth simmering beneath the surface.

I pull from all over the place: art history, gay stuff, pop culture, and the spicy, chaotic energy of Ivorian life. It’s like a big pot of influences that’s constantly bubbling over.

Humor, economics, religion, mourning—I’m always writing or cracking jokes about these things. And I love visualizing them with the kinds of everyday objects you’d find in someone’s house. Ice sculptures, rose petals, coffins, candy, cash, Windex, wheelchairs—oh, and we can’t forget paper towels. It’s like taking these ordinary things and giving them a twist, making them carry this extra layer of meaning that’s both familiar and totally unexpected.

How has maintaining your residence here in Richmond affected your career internationally? 

Oh, it definitely has. Teaching at VCU gives my practice a nice boost of prestige and credibility, which never hurts. Plus, having the airport just 15 minutes from the condo I drunkenly bought online (sight unseen, mind you) makes jetting off to international projects pretty convenient. But honestly, what I’m really interested in is how being here in Richmond affects my career locally.

There’s such a rich history and vibrant community here that I feel incredibly lucky to be a part of. I love collaborating with Britney Anderson on Pink Room and the work I’m doing for Ari Heckman and the Ash Group for the upcoming Shenandoah Inn Hotel. But, if I’m being honest, I’d love to do even more.

Right now, I feel like an artist in name only in this city because all my projects are scattered across the globe. I’m itching to bring some of that work back home, to really show Richmond what I’m made of. So, if anyone at the ICA, the VMFA, Capital One, or Reynolds is reading this—call me!

At what moment did you understand that you were on track to have a notable space in the global art conversation?

It was during the height of the pandemic in 2020. I had just finished grad school and found myself back in my mom’s basement again—it was really giving struggle rapper vibes because I was watching my career take off from the safety of my childhood Hercules comforter. I needed to make a work, so I decided to give this performance on Zoom where I lectured on the history of lamentation and mourning in contemporary art, all while crying for the entire duration of the talk. To add to the tragic comedy of it all, I taught the audience how to cry on cue so they could mourn with me. It was as absurd as it was cathartic.

What struck me was seeing people from all over the world log in to watch me practice this medium I’d spent the last ten years studying. There I was, thinking I was doomed to irrelevance in a world where people couldn’t even leave their houses, let alone touch each other. I was so moved by it all that I wanted to cry—but I’d already been crying for two hours straight, so there wasn’t much I could do at that point, and I couldn’t tell if I was crying or if it was the menthol under my eyes. But that was the moment I knew everything was going to be okay.

Not long after that, I was named a 2021 artist to watch by Artnet, alongside this incredibly humbling list of international artists who, in my opinion, were already famous. Needless to say, I didn’t stay on my mom’s couch much longer after that.

What challenges did you face as an artist when you noticed your own relevance? 

Relevance is like an addiction—once you get a taste, you start craving more, and before you know it, you’re caught in the trap of trying to maintain something that’s as elusive as it is fleeting. I’ve definitely gone to some Icarus-like lengths to hold onto relevance, even though, if I’m honest, I’m not entirely sure I ever fully grasped it in the first place.

There was a moment when someone I used to work with called me a “has-been,” and it completely knocked me off balance. It sent me into this downward dog, relevance bender that I’m only now beginning to recover from. These days, I’m trying to redefine what relevance actually means for me and my work. Life is too long to constantly chase something that’s never quite enough.

Now, I’m focusing on finding glory in purpose and intention rather than in Instagram likes, fancy magazine reviews, or party invitations—and who does or doesn’t say hi to me at those parties. Honestly, being a “has-been” doesn’t sound so bad when you think about it. It’s like being a ghost—you get to linger and haunt people, which, let’s face it, is something I’ve always wanted to do.

What joys did you find in that same time, and how do you hold on to them for future inspiration, and/or gas in the tank through disappointments? 

For me, the real joy comes from the process itself—the moments when everything comes together in the most unexpected ways. It’s like that scene in Sweet Home Alabama where the actor waits for lightning to strike so he can make his absurd glass sculptures. There’s something ridiculous and beautiful in that act of waiting for inspiration, even if what you create is ultimately useless.

In my work, inspiration often comes from the ordinary—the domestic materials I grew up around, like paper towels, Windex bottles, and fake flowers. My mother’s influence as a caterer and event planner runs deep in my practice, and those everyday objects are a way for me to explore bigger ideas about labor, hospitality, and performance. The joy for me is in taking something as mundane as a paper towel and turning it into something profound, something that challenges the way we think about art and its materials.

When I’m in the studio, even just sitting there staring at something, it’s a way of holding onto that inspiration, of keeping the joy alive through the inevitable disappointments. It’s those moments of unexpected clarity that keep me going, reminding me why I do this in the first place. And when the next spark of inspiration comes, I’m ready to catch it, whether it’s in a desert waiting for lightning or right in the middle of my studio.

Does queerness flavor your perceptions that find their expressions in your work? If so, how? The delightful over-representation of non-hetero or binary peoples in the arts is, to me, the greatest compliment to our existence. What are your feelings on the magnetism between expansive sexualities and non-conformative identities and art?

To be honest, all of that is none of my business. As a proud member of the Black and LGBTQIA+ communities, I love seeing more and more people included in the canon. But let’s be real—most of it is garbage and ugly, and that’s okay for whoever it’s okay for. To me, one’s race or sexuality is irrelevant unless it’s a vital conceptual component of your practice and not just an aesthetic or a plot point.

No one should be excluded from visibility because of their identity, but at the same time, in the words of Valerie Cherish, “I don’t want to see that.” In my opinion, queer or Black or any art, for that matter, doesn’t have to be or look like anything other than good. It’s not about ticking boxes; it’s about the quality and depth of the work itself.

Is there a medium you find to be a chore? Is there one or several you want to explore more that you haven’t tried (or mastered)? 

Not really—I find the whole business of making work a chore because it’s actually my job, and who wants to work? Mastery feels overrated to me, especially because, one, I’m Black, and two, you can pay people to do that for you. The only thing I want to be a master of is my own voice.

I have the luxury of making absolutely anything I want whenever I want, thanks to the power of Google, YouTube, and ChatGPT. It’s the “why” that I’m trying to get good at.

Give me three historical, three pop-culture, and three musical reference points to describe the trajectory of your vision—either what has brought you here so far, or what is leading you right now. 

For me, it’s very simple: Les Misérables. That’s it. Aspirational malaise and ennui, delivered through grandiose orchestral music and overly dramatic vocals, all dressed up as the French Revolution. This is my Roman Empire. My morning alarm is set to the 1985 Original London Cast Recording of “One Day More.” Why? Because it scores the depressed main character clown energy I insist on carrying through the day.