Zubkov first of all strives in his painting to reveal internal links among things. On his canvases on the edge of two forms the third one appears — it fills the objects with new meanings. Color combinations result in new additional shades. The onlooker discovers the entire solid world where nothing is close or far, but everything is united. Zubkov prefers simple subjects — still lifes, countryside landscapes, casual scenes; though he fills them with profound symbolical significance.

From the art-critic’s point of view Zubkov’s painting is a continuous experiment, an attempt to combine various conceptions of classical Modernism — Impressionism, Cubism, Cézannism, Suprematism. He considers a figurative idea to be an essence of a painting. That is why a lot of his canvases are dated twice — the first date present a year of an idea birth, the second — a creation of a painting. The gap between them may be even several decades.