Daily Inspiration: Meet Brian Zamora

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Zamora.

Hi Brian, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I started at Frank Gehry’s office out of college, eventually elevating to Senior Associate and serving in Senior Project Designer, Project Manager and Project Architect roles gaining varied and extensive design and technical skills. I consider my most significant project roles to be Project Designer for the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas Nevada (c. 2010) , the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington DC (c. 2021) and numerous Facebook office projects in London and Dublin as well as Project Manager of the Ohr O’Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi Mississippi and Facebook Seattle offices. Around 2015 my role at Gehry Partners was becoming more technical and managerial, with less personal involvement in the front end design side. This is when I started moonlighting into “Light Art” or “Shadow Fixtures” more seriously. One initial eureka moment, came when I was hand shaping two solid wood pieces on a belt sander, pieces that were to become wall scones. The two pieces had a rectangular shape when viewed straight on but the edges were wavy forward and back and unique from each other. Once the Bulb was placed on the wood bases, the shadows varied from each other but had the same feel. I asked myself, “can I create the shadow first and then create it with a different shape”. It is here this current obsession set in, where I essentially create a shadow pattern desired first and then construct in 3D the corresponding and counter shapes that will provide the shadow. Based in using 3d tools, software, and automated fabrication methods commonly used in architecture/construction, and after partnering on a CNC milling machine, I began crafting light objects that I eventually showcased in small galleries and venues.
In 2022, after venturing into LED color and color blending with a wall sized piece shown in a show at TAG entitled ARTitects: Architects who Art, I designed and constructed a 10,000 SF immersive light exhibit in a former fashion photo studio. Here, I melded “light art” in an architectural scale much in the realm of Light and Space movement. Entitled “Color Fields”, five distinct exhibits put visitors in a walk through within an interactive color saturated experience, each part playing on different concepts/experiences.
From Color Fields I toggled between light products, event lighting, and architectural installations that also serve as lighting elements. For Yangban restaurant in DTLA, I used machines that were originally custom developed for a Gehry project. Here I created twelve steel framed-woven stainless steel cable panels that show mountain, valley, and landscape image abstractions of Seoraksan National Park, Korea for the purpose of containing the outdoor eating area. Functional screen walls with integrated art and lighting.
While I do still practice as a licensed architect (housing and technical consultation) I am currently engaged in multiple directions including Fabrication, Art, Installation Art, and Event Lighting. My path has been very non-linear and I am not ever really sure in which direction I will be focused next. In slow times, I pick up past ideas and projects and attempt to expand on them, even without a specific “client” driving it. I try to find the right application or showcase to present it in. This approach has its drawbacks and the search for new work is eternal, but I am quite happy with I have produced and invented in that last two years of working fully for myself.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not been smooth in any sense. Most of my start has been entirely self funded and then self marketed including the 10,000 SF lighting exhibition (Color Fields at Blush Studios ). Having a full time job at Gehry Partners when I started exploring my art ideas was a financial comfort but was a time struggle for obvious reasons. Now that I am self employed, Time is more available but financing is now front and center. I am still very much in the middle of making my self employment work. Just doing “good work” is not enough for success or even stability. You need to wear a business hat, a marketing hat, and constantly chase new work. The networking and marketing part is something that I am still very much catching up on.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
First and foremost, I am an Architect. As an architect, I have extensive design but more importantly, technical and building experience. I know how to execute complicated ideas to reality. I take this knowledge into any project I am working on whether it be architecture, art, fabrication or event lighting. I have been focused as an Artist, specifically in Light Art for the last 9 years. Its here that I believe I have created works that resonate with people, whether in the art work or not. I use simple means (like a single light bulb) to create complex illusionary shadow effects, or use a walled construction specifically designed to fully express colored lights behavior by putting you in an immersive Color Wheel (2022) room construction. My latest series Flowers for Euclid are a series of resin cast sconce light fixtures, fashioned into triangles, squares and circles , that create the exact same flower shadow shape (and size) on the wall. Also in this series is an organic resin shape (same outline shape when viewed straight on) that creates circle, tringle and square shadows. The work looks very “normal” at first glance but viewers take a pause, and realize there is another layer of visual complexity. I think my work resonates with a broad audience walking a line between architecture, art, and utilitarian. Even if I am working on objects in a room, I take a wholistic spatial approach, making sure to understand and react to the entire room.
While I have a keen love for a few of my projects, I think I am most proud of my installation at Yangban Restaurant located in the Arts District of DTLA. I was initially asked by a friend to propose a lighting feature to give the off-street courtyard entrance added notice. After getting further into the plans, we realized the exterior eating area needed added definition and boundaries (it was a shared space). We needed to extend the interior out, and it still feel integrated and cohesive with the interior design. Here, I tapped an artist/architect mentor, Tomas Osinski who had invented a CNC machine for the Eisenhower Memorial “tapestry” in Washington D.C. I was the designer on the project at Gehry when this tapestry was developed; a wire mesh netting of stainless steel cable that is laid out and welded into controlled patterns to create imagery. Tomas allowed me to rent his shop to fully fabricate 12 freestanding steel panels, that are used as boundary screen walls to frame the eating area. The panels, using visual aspects of Seoraksan National Park in Korea show low resolution mountains, valley’s, trees, and rivers rendered in stainless steel cable and lit from below within its planter box base. This is the first project where I feel all of my past experience, skills, and interests both design and technical came together well into one fabulous project.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Follow the “ideas” and continue to build on those ideas. The process takes on different paces and speeds. By relying on your experience while maintaining a strong commitment to the work, I have been able to elevate my work from one project to the next. It is through this tic upward and expansion of ideas that I remain obsessed and excited to jump into the next project, and that is very important to me

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.brianzamora.com/
• Instagram: @b_c_z
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555767570517
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-zamora-2251276/
• Other: https://www.bettertomorrow.llc/

Image Credits
Bradley Wheeler Photo Joshua White Photography