Zak van Biljon (1981, South Africa) is a landscape and fine art photographer based in Switzerland. He spent his childhood and teenage years between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
He pursued his photographic education at the Cape Town School of Photography and the National College of Photography in Pretoria, graduating in 2003. His studies focused particularly on black-and-white printing, a choice he later described as ironic given the profound influence that the vivid colours of South Africa, the so-called Rainbow Nation, had exerted on his visual imagination. In 2004, van Biljon moved to Europe, where his encounter with the distinctive Mediterranean light of Rome and the dynamic creative environment of London contributed to the development of his visual language. In London, he established himself within the fashion industry, working with renowned underground labels and becoming a sought-after photographer. He subsequently settled in Switzerland, developing a career that moves between commissioned photography, advertising and independent artistic research. In 2020, he further expanded his photographic training through MoMA’s Seeing Through Photographs course. Van Biljon began experimenting with infrared photography in 2001, initially in black and white, before developing the saturated colour process that characterises his later work. Modernising Nature has been presented in solo exhibitions including GALERIE10 (2021), Galerie Märtplatz (2023), Photo Münsingen (2023) and Luisa Catucci Gallery (2023), as well as at Photo Basel (2021) and MIA Fair at Superstudio Maxi (2023). In 2023, the project was published as a monograph by Kehrer Verlag.
Alongside his artistic practice, van Biljon works internationally as a commissioned photographer, producing campaigns for luxury brands including Audemars Piguet. His background in commercial image-making runs parallel to an increasingly personal and conceptually driven approach to landscape photography.
Zak van Biljon (1981, South Africa) is a landscape and fine art photographer based in Switzerland. He spent his childhood and teenage years between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
He pursued his photographic education at the Cape Town School of Photography and the National College of Photography in Pretoria, graduating in 2003. His studies focused particularly on black-and-white printing, a choice he later described as ironic given the profound influence that the vivid colours of South Africa, the so-called Rainbow Nation, had exerted on his visual imagination. In 2004, van Biljon moved to Europe, where his encounter with the distinctive Mediterranean light of Rome and the dynamic creative environment of London contributed to the development of his visual language. In London, he established himself within the fashion industry, working with renowned underground labels and becoming a sought-after photographer. He subsequently settled in Switzerland, developing a career that moves between commissioned photography, advertising and independent artistic research. In 2020, he further expanded his photographic training through MoMA’s Seeing Through Photographs course. Van Biljon began experimenting with infrared photography in 2001, initially in black and white, before developing the saturated colour process that characterises his later work. Modernising Nature has been presented in solo exhibitions including GALERIE10 (2021), Galerie Märtplatz (2023), Photo Münsingen (2023) and Luisa Catucci Gallery (2023), as well as at Photo Basel (2021) and MIA Fair at Superstudio Maxi (2023). In 2023, the project was published as a monograph by Kehrer Verlag.
Alongside his artistic practice, van Biljon works internationally as a commissioned photographer, producing campaigns for luxury brands including Audemars Piguet. His background in commercial image-making runs parallel to an increasingly personal and conceptually driven approach to landscape photography.
“We need a new way of looking at nature in the 21st century — just as the landscape painters of the 19th century faced the rise of industrialization, I explore how color reshapes our relationship with the world. For me, color is more than light — it’s language. Changing it rewrites how we connect with the landscapes around us.” – Zak van Bilon
Zak van Biljon’s work explores the relationship between humanity and nature through photography, focusing on how technology, colour and changing forms of visual perception shape our experience of the natural world. His use of near-infrared photography allows him to make this shift visible. Vegetation that normally appears green is transformed into vivid reds, pinks and purples, while snow-covered peaks and other elements of the landscape acquire unexpected blue and green tones. What may appear to be digital manipulation is instead the recording of a physical part of the landscape that remains invisible to the human eye. Near-infrared light lies just beyond the red end of the visible spectrum. Chlorophyll absorbs visible light for photosynthesis, while the cellular structure of leaves strongly reflects radiation. Infrared-sensitive film and modified digital cameras can record this reflected energy and translate it into the intense colours characteristic of van Biljon’s images. The resulting abstract-like photographs therefore reveal a real physical layer of the landscape rather than an artificial filter or imagined palette.
The technique has also been historically associated with technological forms of observation, including military surveillance and agricultural surveys, introducing a further connection between nature and technology into van Biljon’s work. His use of infrared expands the visible spectrum of photography while drawing attention to the limits of human perception. This displacement of colour is central to Modernising Nature, in which van Biljon reimagines the Swiss Alps through near-infrared photography. The title refers both to the possibility of modernising nature and to the need to modernise our way of looking at it. Although contemporary society has developed increasingly sophisticated technologies for representing the world, nature is still often approached through familiar visual conventions. By replacing green—the conventional visual language of vegetation—with red and magenta, van Biljon disrupts a familiar way of seeing and establishes an alternative visual vocabulary.
The project also responds to the way landscapes are increasingly encountered through screens and social media. Since the rise of Instagram, natural places have often become images to be photographed, filtered and circulated, sometimes turning the landscape into a backdrop rather than an experience in itself. Van Biljon’s infrared images react to this culture by making the familiar landscape visually strange and difficult to pass over. Their vivid, unreal colours are intended to attract attention, particularly among younger urban audiences who may be increasingly disconnected from direct experiences of nature.
Van Biljon’s exploration of infrared began in 2001 with black-and-white infrared photography and gradually developed into the highly saturated colour work for which he is now known. Across this practice, technical precision and an interest in the physical properties of light are combined with an investigation into contemporary representations of nature. His photographs appear unreal precisely because they reveal something real that normally remains unseen. By changing the colour through which nature is perceived, van Biljon uses photography and technology to question not nature itself, but the ways in which we have learned to see and experience it.
ARTWORKS HIGHLIGHTS
INSTALLATION VIEWS
Exhibition Title: Modernising Nature
Artists: Zak van Biljon
Location: Luisa Catucci Gallery, Allerstr. 38, 12049 Berlin
Curator: Luisa Catucci
Oct 13th – Nov 24th, 2023
Exhibition Title: Nature’s Signatures
Artists: Zak van Biljon, Tom Kretschmer, Samanta Malvasi
Location: Luisa Catucci Contemporary, Brunnenstr 170, 10119 Berlin
Curator: Luisa Catucci
Jan 29th – March 22nd, 2026
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
His recent solo exhibitions include Galerie94, Baden, Switzerland (2025); Galerie Monika Wertheimer, Basel, Switzerland (2023); Luisa Catucci Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2023); Galerie10, St. Moritz, Switzerland (2022); Galerie94, Baden, Switzerland (2020); and 4te Raum, Zurich, Switzerland (2017).
His group exhibitions include Luisa Catucci Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2026); Unseen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, with Kehrer (2026); Photo London, London, UK, with Kehrer (2026); Photo Basel, Basel, Switzerland, with Galerie94 (2026); Paris Photo, Paris, France, with Kehrer (2025); Moordn, Guangzhou, China, with Luisa Catucci Gallery (2025); The Phair, Turin, Italy, with Luisa Catucci Gallery & Artco Gallery (2025); Photo Basel, Basel, Switzerland, with Galerie94 (2025); Galerie94 – 10 Years, Baden, Switzerland (2025); Fondazione CRC, Cuneo, Italy (2025); Art Salon Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, with Galerie94 (2025); Galerie WOS, Zurich, Switzerland (2024); Galerie10, St. Moritz, Switzerland (2024); Snow Polo, St. Moritz, Switzerland, with Galerie10 (2024); Photo Basel, Basel, Switzerland, with Galerie94 (2024); Art Salon Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, with Galerie WOS (2024); Galerie10 – Suvretta House, St. Moritz, Switzerland (2023); Galerie Monika Wertheimer, Basel, Switzerland (2023); Snow Polo, St. Moritz, Switzerland, with Galerie10 (2023); Photo Münsingen, Münsingen, Switzerland (2023); Kulturwoche, Küsnacht, Switzerland (2022); Galerie94 – Berge, Baden, Switzerland (2022); Photo Basel, Basel, Switzerland, with Galerie94 (2022); Galerie94 – Art Salon Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland (2022); Galerie10, St. Moritz, Switzerland (2021); H20, Galerie94, Baden, Switzerland (2021); ROT RED ROUGE, Galerie Koschmieder, Berlin, Germany (2021); Galerie94 – Photo Basel, Basel, Switzerland (2021); 160 Jahre Landschaftsfotografie, Galerie WOS – Photo Basel, Basel, Switzerland (2021); Pop-Up Show & Book Signings, Galerie Koschmieder, Berlin, Germany (2021); Bergluft, Galerie WOS, Zurich, Switzerland (2021); Photo Basel, Basel, Switzerland, with Galerie94 (2020); Positions Berlin Art Fair, Berlin, Germany, with Galerie94 (2020); MOPLA, Lucie Foundation, Los Angeles, USA (2017); Tournemine Gallery, Gstaad, Switzerland (2017); Art Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland (2016); Rotterdam Art Fair, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2016); The Annex, Bricklane Gallery, London, UK (2016); Photo16, Zurich, Switzerland (2016); and Cape Town School of Photography, Cape Town, South Africa (2001).
Among the awards he has received are 1st Place at the Fine Art Photography Awards in the Cityscape category (2021); nominations in the Landscape, Fine Art and Night categories of the Fine Art Photography Awards (2021); an Honourable Mention at the Prix de la Photographie, Paris (2020); an All About Photo Merit Award for Shapes (2020); an Honourable Mention at the Prix de la Photographie, Paris (2019); a Fine Art Photography Awards nomination in the Landscape category (2019); a Bronze Award at the BIFA 2019 in Fine Art – Landscape (2019); an Honourable Mention at the Prix de la Photographie, Paris (2016); Best Artist at the Rotterdam Art Fair, The Netherlands (2016); and an Honourable Mention at the International Photography Awards (2016).