Pilar Zeta: The Argentine artist behind Coldplay’s aesthetic

At the end of October last year, Egypt’s Pyramids of Giza hosted the Mirror Gate outdoor art exhibition. The work was an immense portal of limestone — the same limestone the pyramids are made of — and contained metal spheres painted an iridescent violet in honor of the sacred Egyptian scarab beetle, a 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 magical crystal balls where it was claimed the viewer could glimpse their future. All this is very much in keeping with its creator Pilar Zeta, who since her childhood has felt a deep attraction for the pyramids, Ancient Egypt and its symbology. She is also drawn to portals, which for her symbolize the power to enter a new reality where you can alter the current one or experience others simultaneously, according to the principles of quantum physics.

Her monumental portals of geometric shapes have been a consistent feature since Hall of Visions, a project she exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2022, which became a highlight of that year’s art fair. It is estimated that 80,000 people paid it a visit, an incredible feat, with even Deepak Chopra himself sitting down to meditate. This is typical of the multiverses so present in the work of Zeta, who completed a 21-day meditation challenge during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This was the first time she brought her digital creations to reality, and especially in that scale. However, an internet search on her throws up works such as collaborations with Camila Cabello, Lil Nas X, Kim Petras, the set design of Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream for her 2017 tour, the direction of Spanish fashion firm Bimba y Lola’s most recent campaign (something she previously did with Carolina Herrera) and, most notably, her collaboration with Coldplay, which began a decade ago and earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package in 2021. Her work with the British band, contrary to what many think, goes far beyond designing their album covers. It is a matter of artistic direction that serves as a channel between their music and an aesthetic and symbolic language. Chris Martin struck up a great bond with Zeta, and she seems to have become indispensable to him.

The manner in which this collaboration came about is a testament to her character. Her agent sent out a bulk email to a large list of band representatives featuring a tarot card design with a drawing of a meditating colorful head. The email landed in the spam folder of Phil Harvey, Coldplay’s manager and creative director, who thought Martin, who was about to release A Head Full of Dreams, might like it. “It was the dream of my life. The previous New Year, I made a wish list that I put under a pyramid [the same one she still keeps in her home and under which she keeps many more lists today], and one of them was to work with the biggest band in the world. At the time I thought, I don’t know, Depeche Mode, many others, but when I got that email back two weeks later to meet Coldplay at Soho House I said, ‘Stop! This is the biggest band in the world.’”

As Virgil said: fortune favors the bold. And Zeta’s story is testament to this. At the age of 19, after only two months of studying graphic design and coming to the conclusion that the traditional education approach did not suit her, she left her native Argentina and moved to Miami. There she began working in a hotel doing all kinds of jobs that she found horrible and lasted only a short time because she was fired. She had no job, no money, no cell phone of her own, no computer and a limited CV that only included the three jobs she had had during college.

What she did have was a burning desire and above all the conviction to pursue her dreams. She also had considerable computer skills and went in search of a job in every printing house in the city. In one. she was asked to make a flyer in front of them. They liked it. In fact, they liked it more than the one by the graphic designer they employed. From that moment, Zeta started earning $50 per flyer for parties and weddings while making a name for herself. Soon after, she was designing the flyers for all the electronic music parties in Miami.

When she finished her stint in Miami, she considered going to Mexico, but a tarot reader told her that it was not yet the right time, and as a friend was heading to Berlin, she tagged along with her for a week and ended up staying for five years. There she pursued graphic design in the electronic artists’ scene, designing album covers and taking over the artistic direction of the legendary Berghain club for a month.

Afterward, she moved to Los Angeles and followed her intuition, which told her she had to be there and meet certain people, such as the representative who sent the fortuitous email that resulted in the meeting that would forever change her life just a week after her arrival in the city. When she felt that Los Angeles had given her what it had to, feeling that the people there were not happy with her presence there and that she was in need of more greenery, she moved to Portland, in the state of Oregon. From there, she had the luxury of working remotely with the musicians with whom she collaborated. This allowed her to conceive the idea of creating her own art pieces and having a home where she could create a universe of her own for the next five years.

What she thought would be a holdup in her plans because of Covid-19 proved to be the catalyst: it was during the pandemic that a huge interest in digital art (NFTs) erupted. “I thought, ‘I’ve been making digital art for years!’ I was already designing my pieces in 3D, but I had no idea how I was going to produce them or make them tangible. During the pandemic I did thousands of meditations, exercises every day, I watched 500,000 videos and I implored the universe to find something that was mine and that I could continue to recreate it.”

In 2022, it was finally the time for Mexico. There, with her two cats, Matrix and Music, as guardians, she has created her next projects. These include the artwork for Coldplay’s new album, the pieces she presented at Art Dubai the first week of March and a portal that will be exhibited at one of the Moco Museum’s venues. Some of her NFTs are already in Barcelona as part of the exhibition called The New Future, which is currently running.

To make sure she is heading in the right direction, she starts her days with meditation, often the Silva method, immediately upon waking up. “The state between the theta wave frequency, a dreamy state, to alpha, when you are more awake but not yet relaxed and before beta, which is when you are fully awake, is the sweet spot where your brain has the purest information from your subconscious and is ideal for visualizing and programming incredible things to happen in your day.” Afterward, she practices Qigong and reads over a cup of coffee.

When asked what she might wish would happen, having done so much, she replies: “What I want now is to travel around the world taking my work to museums and galleries where it hasn’t yet reached. But, above all, to flow.”

She answers when questioned about her wishes for the future. She knows better than anyone that doing things and enjoying the present is the best way to project a bright future. However, she keeps sowing seeds and mentions that she might like to do something in the Al-Ula desert in Saudi Arabia, where artists such as James Turrell and Agnes Denes have staged mammoth installations. Incidentally, there is a giant portal with stairs. After learning about Zeta’s creative process, it is evident that this is a sign that, sooner or later, this is going to come to pass. For the time being, she will certainly follow the Nietzsche quote, which she keeps on her fridge, every day: “Today I transmute everything into gold.”

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