A Creative In Between Portals: This is Pilar Zeta
Pilar Zeta
From club flyers to one of the most important artists of her generation
I met Pilar in 2008 in Miami. I was collecting her flyers. She designed them for PL0T, for Wolf + Lamb, for some of the most charged nights this city had ever seen. And from a mile away, over the years, I could tell an album cover was hers: a certain geometry, a certain relationship between symbol and space, the feeling that something sacred had been allowed into the design process.
There are some people you meet and right away you know they are destined for great things. I felt that instantly with Pilar. What follows is a conversation that spans two very different moments in her life, and two very different versions of the world she was building.
Antakly Projects · Art & Design Series · Originally 2010 · Updated 2026
Pilar in her Miami years, designing club flyers and building a visual language no one had a name for yet.
Pilar at The Observer Effect, Miami Art Week. Grammy-nominated, globally exhibited, still following her intuition.
Pilar Zeta · Miami, circa 2010
Your inspirations, your greatest influences: where do they come from?
Growing up, I used to collect a lot of rock albums, not only for the music but also for the cover art. There was a British design group from the 1970s called Hipgnosis that made cover art for Pink Floyd, the Alan Parsons Project, Deep Purple, The Who. Their designs were simply the best, and they were in perfect sync with the music. I just couldn't get enough.
My brother was a huge fan of all the rock artists of that generation and had every record. I would spend hours looking at them and listening to the music. Later I realised that most of those covers were made by the same person: Storm Thorgerson. The covers were very surreal and in perfect synchronisation with the music. My favourite, obviously, was The Dark Side of the Moon.
"I also drew a lot of influence from the occult. My mother is very into all things metaphysical and paranormal. I was already playing with tarot cards at school. Before I ended up as a graphic designer, I wanted to study parapsychology."
As for inspirations: the universe is definitely my biggest one. From there I can borrow ideas and convert them into something real. And also Star Wars.
Music plays a major role in my designs. I always try to make the artwork reflect something about what is going to be heard. Synesthesia plays a very large part in my creative process, which is why I try to listen to the same genre as the artists in a lineup while I'm building an idea.
Favourite artists?
Otto Dix. Peter Saville. Jamie Hewlett.
Favourite music and DJs?
I listen to a lot of downtempo and ambient music. Brian Eno is one of my favourites. I also listen to a lot of Yacht Rock. And as far as DJs: Dixon and Violett.
What would be a dream project for you?
Every dream I've had so far has become a project. But I also dream of collaborating with a comic artist, or doing something for Star Wars.
Anything else?
The truth is out there.
Berghain. Ministry of Sound. Visionquest. Mobilee.
Early flyer and cover work · Berghain, Ministry of Sound, Visionquest, Mobilee
Wolf + Lamb & PL0T · Electric Pickle, Miami · January 2010
At the end of October last year, Egypt's Pyramids of Giza hosted Mirror Gate, an outdoor art exhibition. The work was an immense portal of limestone, the same limestone the pyramids are made of, containing metal spheres painted iridescent violet in honour of the sacred Egyptian scarab beetle, symbol of regeneration and birth, and gold, for the sun. It also included eggs, the symbol of creation, in which visitors were reflected, evoking the crystal balls where it was said the viewer could glimpse their future.
All this is very much in keeping with its creator. Since childhood, Pilar has felt a deep attraction for the pyramids, Ancient Egypt and its symbology. She is also drawn to portals, which for her symbolise the power to enter a new reality, to alter the current one, or experience others simultaneously, according to the principles of quantum physics.
Mirror Gate II · Place du Louvre, Paris
With Mirror Gate II, installed at the Place du Louvre, Pilar's work sets up a relationship between past and present. Egyptian stones, alabaster, granite and breccia, are assembled into a portal that stands in dialogue with the museum's architecture and the glass pyramid beyond. The alignment feels intentional without being overstated. It draws a line between ancient building traditions and a contemporary public square, asking visitors to move through that connection with their own bodies.
Nearby, sculptural eggs sit as markers of potential. They appear solid and grounded, yet they carry associations with origin, growth, and transformation. Together with the portal, they shape a threshold condition. Visitors pass through, pause, circle back.
The Observer Effect · Miami Art Week
A series of portals stretches across the sand at Miami Art Week, each finished in iridescent auto paint that shifts with the light. At sunrise, the surfaces feel soft and atmospheric. By midday, they sharpen into reflective metallics. The installation never settles into a single image.
The title points to a simple idea: the act of looking changes what is seen. Here, that principle becomes spatial. The installation, estimated to have been visited by over 80,000 people during Art Basel Miami Beach 2022's Hall of Visions alone, is completed through movement, through participation.
Her monumental portals, a consistent language
Geometric shapes. Sacred references. Iridescent surfaces that refuse to stay still. These have been a consistent feature since Hall of Visions at Art Basel Miami Beach 2022, which became one of the highlights of that year's fair. From that work to the Louvre, Pilar has built a visual language that is completely her own, and completely inevitable, when you look back at the flyers.
This feature draws on a conversation originally published in 2010 and expanded significantly for the Antakly Projects archive in 2026. Pilar's original words are reproduced with her voice intact.
Part of the Antakly Projects art and design archive, conversations with the people shaping the visual culture of music. Read all interviews here.
Stay curious,