From the Italian Renaissance to Gold Fine Art Photography: The Art of Zack Zublena

Featured artwork: Archangel Michael – The Chosen by Zack Zublena. Explore the fine art photograph and its available print options.

A figure turns toward the light. Gold catches along a shoulder, an arm, the curve of a hand. The pose feels almost sculptural, yet the person in the photograph is real. This is the starting point of Zack Zublena’s fine art photography: a human being, painted with reflective gold-colored body paint, directed in front of the camera, and photographed under carefully controlled light.

Zack is a French-American artist with Italian roots. The attention he gives to the human form recalls something he admires in Italian Renaissance art: the ability to make a gesture, a surface, and a source of light carry meaning. His work is contemporary photography, made through its own physical process. Looking at how Renaissance artists worked helps explain the visual questions that still interest him today.

What the Italian Renaissance Saw in the Human Figure

Italian Renaissance artists studied the body, its proportions, its movement, and its place within a composition. The National Gallery of Art’s introduction to the Italian Renaissance describes a period in which artists looked closely at the natural world and the human figure. They were concerned with how a person could appear present and convincing within an image.

That interest is visible in Zack’s photographs, though his tools are different. A slight turn of the shoulders can change the shape of a silhouette. The placement of a hand can make a pose feel guarded, open, or assured. Gold reflects the light differently as the person moves. Zack works with those changes during the session, guiding the subject until the image has the balance and expression he is looking for.

The result is elegant figurative fine art photography. Its form comes from the person who was there, the pose they held, and the decisions Zack made behind the camera.

Behind the Image: Preparation, Direction, and Craft

A finished Renaissance work can appear effortless, but its making involved decisions long before the final surface was complete. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s essay on Renaissance drawings shows how drawings could help an artist develop an idea, communicate it to a patron, and guide work within a studio.

Zack’s process also begins before the final photograph. He considers the subject, the mood, the pose, and how the image will be lit. He then applies reflective gold-colored paint to a real person and builds the photograph through direction and composition. The angle of the body and the position of the lights determine which forms emerge from shadow and which surfaces shine.

His photographs are made with real performers through body painting, posing, lighting, and photography. See how Zack creates his work with real people, not generative AI.

Gold in Art: One Color, Different Materials

Gold has a long visual history, but it does not always mean the same thing or involve the same material. The Getty’s exhibition The Shimmer of Gold: Giovanni di Paolo in Renaissance Siena explores the use of gold in Italian painting. On a historical painted surface, gold leaf can reflect light directly from the work itself.

In Zack’s practice, the gold begins on the body. He paints his subject with reflective gold-colored body paint, then photographs the effect created by skin, pose, and light. His photographic prints do not contain physical gold leaf. What the viewer sees in the image was created in front of the camera.

That distinction matters. It lets you appreciate the photograph for what it is: a contemporary artwork built from a real encounter and precise visual choices. Explore the figures and expressions in Zack’s Golden Souls collection.

A Portrait Can Be More Than a Record of Appearance

A portrait shows a person, but it can also express how that person wishes to be seen. The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery exhibition on photographic portraiture considers the people on both sides of the camera. The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s photography collection offers another view of photography as an artistic medium with its own history and range.

For Zack, posture is part of a portrait’s language. A body can suggest stillness, strength, vulnerability, or motion without spelling out a story. Gold gives the form a luminous surface, but it is the person’s presence that makes the photograph particular.

Clients can experience that process themselves through Zack’s personal gold photoshoot experience. Each session begins with a conversation about the image they want to create, followed by painting, guidance in front of the camera, and photography.

From the Photograph to the Room

How an artwork is experienced also depends on where it is seen. The Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt, in its exhibition on designer Dorothy Liebes, documents how color, texture, and even a metallic glint can contribute to an interior’s character. The same attention to surroundings is useful when selecting a photograph: its scale, tones, and placement affect how a viewer encounters it.

Zack’s fine art photography has been selected and installed as part of the interior decoration of more than 120 David Lloyd Clubs across the United Kingdom and continental Europe. In spaces used for fitness and wellness, the relationship between the photographed body and the people moving through the room gives the work a particular presence. Read more about the David Lloyd installations.

For a home, hotel, wellness space, or another professional interior, begin with the work itself. Consider where it will be viewed, how large it should appear, and what happens to its gold tones under the room’s lighting. Zack offers fine art photographs and prints that can be selected for individual spaces or considered across multiple locations.

An Italian Influence, a Contemporary Practice

The Italian Renaissance offers Zack a way to think about form, gesture, and the expressive possibilities of light. It does not turn his photographs into Renaissance paintings. His medium is photography, and his subjects are people who stood before his camera.

Explore Zack’s Italian Renaissance collection and Golden Souls collection to see how those interests appear across different works. If you are choosing a photograph for an interior or considering a personal portrait, contact Zack Zublena to discuss what you have in mind.