In the studio: Zio Ziegler
"And yet when I really question what I’m interested in, it is the gap between all of these structures. Secret structures in the world that are found in music and in nature and in storytelling that may have many different manifestations but I think if you are interested in the systems levels thinking the driving the machinery you start to be able to add different veneers or surfaces to that as you expand technically."
— Zio Ziegler
In his California studio, Zio Ziegler reflects on a practice built around breaking forms down to their essence and rebuilding them anew. Moving fluidly between different media, he lets each body of work follow its own organic trajectory—taking shape, distilling itself, then merging into a broader visual language that spans his output. Out of this shifting constellation of symbols, figures, and allegories, a distinct perspective takes form, one that challenges convention, digs into our biological instincts, and toys freely with space and time.
Working primarily in oil paint, Zio Ziegler creates totemic figures and biological forms whose textured surfaces fuse raw pigment with materials such as sand, soil, and pumice. His influences, though constantly evolving, range from early 20th-century abstraction and Italian Futurism to Jackson Pollock’s experiments of the 1940s. Painted in dynamic whorls of color and gesture, Ziegler’s works nevertheless unfold with deliberate slowness. Their central forms are layered, scraped away, revised, and repainted—gestures that trace both the arc of art history and the unfolding of their own making. With their deeply expressive, tactile presence, the paintings resonate with today’s cultural moment, reflecting a world where the rapid rise of artificial intelligence and digital readymades is provoking an existential crisis not only for artists but for society at large.
