In the timeline of an artist’s career, certain moments become public records of creative development. For French fine art photographer Zack Zublena, a 2019 interview provides an important early account of his emerging artistic language in Los Angeles.
Published on 19 August 2019, the article “Meet Zack Zublena” in Voyage LA documented the origins of the Gold Shoot, a photographic concept that would become central to his fine art practice.
The interview provides historical context for the transition from earlier commercial photography towards a more personal exploration of the human form, light and gold. For collectors, interior designers and those interested in the development of Zack Zublena’s work, Voyage LA offers an early public record of ideas that continue to appear throughout his photography today.
Photography itself has a long and evolving history as a fine art medium. The Victoria and Albert Museum’s photography collection spans images dating from the 1820s to contemporary practice and provides broader context for photography’s development as an artistic form.
Every artistic journey has formative moments. As documented in the Voyage LA interview, Zack Zublena’s deeper interest in photography developed following a safari in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
The experience strengthened his interest in capturing the world through the lens. After returning to Los Angeles, Zack photographed headshots and fashion before gradually moving towards fine art photography and a more conceptual approach to the human figure.
Inside his Los Angeles home studio, he began developing the visual environment that would become associated with the Gold Shoot. This included the creation of a genuine gold-leaf wall that served as the backdrop for some of his earliest photographs.
The distinction between the materials is important. Genuine gold leaf was used on the studio wall, while the people appearing in Zack Zublena’s photographs were painted with reflective gold-coloured body paint. The finished photographic prints themselves do not contain gold leaf.
For UK readers interested in the traditional craft behind gilded surfaces, the Victoria and Albert Museum’s guide to water gilding documents the historic process of preparing a surface, applying gold leaf and burnishing it to create a luminous finish.
The transition from idea to artistic process took place within Zack’s Los Angeles studio. Here, the gold-leaf wall, controlled studio lighting and gold-painted human figures came together as the foundation of a distinctive photographic language.
Zack began painting his subjects with reflective gold-coloured body paint before photographing them against carefully controlled backgrounds and lighting. The resulting works explored the relationship between the human form, light, shadow and gold as a visual symbol.
Within Zack Zublena’s artistic philosophy, this process developed into an exploration of inner light, identity and transformation. Gold functions as a visual language rather than simply a decorative colour, allowing the human figure to appear simultaneously physical, sculptural and symbolic.
The relationship between photography and identity is also explored by the National Portrait Gallery in London, which examines how photographic methods and techniques can communicate identity through portraiture.
Gold carries a long history of sacred, solar and symbolic associations in art. In ancient Egypt, brilliant yellow and gold were closely connected with divine and solar imagery.
The British Museum explains that brilliant yellow, used as a substitute for gold, was associated with the life-giving sun and the flesh of the gods.
Within Zack Zublena’s contemporary photography, these historical associations provide context rather than a fixed interpretation. Gold is reimagined through body paint, photographic light and the human form to explore ideas of transformation, value and inner potential.
The 2019 Voyage LA interview therefore provides an early public record of the spiritual and artistic concepts Zack associated with this developing body of work.
The Gold Shoot also entered the world of interior design at an early stage in its development. As Zack described in the 2019 Voyage LA interview, his first Gold Shoot attracted the attention of an interior designer working on a wine cellar in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California.
One of Zack’s photographs was produced at 46 × 72 inches, museum-framed and installed within the completed interior. This became an important early example of his fine art photography functioning at architectural scale within a professionally designed environment.
The placement demonstrated how the symbolic and sculptural qualities of the photography could operate beyond the studio and become part of the visual identity of a refined interior.
You can explore this early installation in Zack Zublena Fine Art Photography at The Cellar Beverly Hills.
The ideas documented by Voyage LA in 2019 did not remain static. The early experiments with reflective gold-coloured body paint, studio lighting and the gold-leaf backdrop developed into a broader and more recognisable artistic language.
The human form remains central to this work, but individual identity can become secondary to gesture, pose, light and sculptural presence. This creates photographs that occupy a space between portraiture, figurative art and symbolic imagery.
The National Portrait Gallery’s resources on expressing identity through portraiture provide useful wider context for the ways artists use portraits to communicate something beyond physical appearance.
For architects, interior designers, hospitality professionals and collectors, this visual consistency allows different works to be integrated into an interior while retaining a recognisable artistic identity.
The development of Zack Zublena’s practice is explored further on the About Zack Zublena page.
The UK represents an important part of the international development of Zack Zublena’s fine art photography.
Years after the early Gold Shoot experiments documented by Voyage LA, Zack’s photography was installed as part of the interior decoration of more than 120 David Lloyd Clubs across the United Kingdom and continental Europe.
David Lloyd Clubs operates premium health, fitness and wellness clubs throughout the UK and mainland Europe. The integration of Zack Zublena’s photography across numerous locations demonstrates how a consistent artistic language can function within contemporary fitness, wellness and leisure interiors.
The project represents a substantial progression from the early Los Angeles studio experiments documented in 2019, while retaining the same fundamental visual relationship between the human form, controlled light and gold.
Read the full story in How Zack Zublena's Artwork Decorated More Than 120 David Lloyd Clubs.
The artistic language documented by Voyage LA in 2019 continues today through Zack Zublena’s fine art photography collections and his separate Gold Body Painting and Fine Art Photography Experience.
The photographic collections include series such as Golden Souls and the Holy Collection, each developing different aspects of the relationship between gold, symbolism, the human form and light.
Collectors can explore these existing photographic works as fine art prints through ZZGALLERY.
For those seeking a direct artistic collaboration, the Gold Body Painting and Fine Art Photography Experience is a separate bespoke service in which the participant becomes the subject of a personal photographic artwork.
Participants are painted with reflective gold-coloured body paint before Zack creates a series of fine art photographic portraits. The process extends the visual exploration of the human form, identity and transformation that began with the early Gold Shoot.
The progression from a Los Angeles home studio to installations across more than 120 David Lloyd Clubs provides a particularly relevant context for UK collectors and design professionals.
Large-format photography can function as a substantial architectural element within private residences, hotels, spas, wellness centres, fitness environments and other professionally curated interiors.
The V&A’s extensive photography collection illustrates the long-standing position of photography within museum and fine art culture, while contemporary photographic practices continue to explore new relationships between subject, scale, materials and interior presentation.
For designers specifying several works, maintaining relationships of colour, scale, lighting and composition can help create continuity through adjoining rooms or multiple locations.
ZZGALLERY’s fine art diptychs, triptychs and coordinated art sets provide one way to develop this type of unified installation.
From the early record provided by the 2019 Voyage LA interview to extensive installations throughout the United Kingdom and continental Europe, Zack Zublena’s practice demonstrates a continuing exploration of gold, light, symbolism and the human form.
What began as a personal photographic experiment in Los Angeles has developed into a distinctive visual language represented across fine art collections, professional interiors and personal artistic experiences.
Interior designers, architects, collectors and art procurement professionals can explore the ZZGALLERY collections to view available works.
For enquiries concerning artwork for private interiors, hospitality or wellness projects, multi-location installations or private commissions, please contact ZZGALLERY.
