Zio Ziegler

Zio Ziegler is a multidisciplinary contemporary artist whose practice centers on the distillation, reconstruction, and evolution of forms. Working across multiple modes of expression, he develops an organic process in which each body of work grows, simplifies and eventually merges into a broader visual vocabulary. From this ever-expanding universe of symbols, figures and allegories, Ziegler constructs a worldview that challenges conventions, explores biological instincts and experiments with shifting perceptions of space and time. As he explains, “Painting is my attempt at processing and synthesizing the stories and information I’ve become curious about,” a statement that reflects the way his works convert curiosity and lived experience into flat, transmittable images that form the building blocks of an increasingly complex artistic lexicon. Certain motifs—such as trees—first emerged as visualizations during meditation, later refined through a process of distillation until they became raw pictographic marks. These forms both mirror his internal landscape and evoke themes of renewal, linking symbolic meaning to somatic processes. Working primarily in oil paint, Ziegler creates totemic figures and biological structures with richly textured surfaces that combine pigment with materials like sand, soil and pumice. His influences span early twentieth-century abstraction, Italian Futurism and the experimental methods of Jackson Pollock in the 1940s. Although painted in dynamic whorls of color and gesture, Ziegler’s compositions unfold through a deliberate and meditative process. Forms are layered, scraped back, revised and repainted, creating surfaces that reveal both the trajectory of art-historical references and the narrative of their own making. The resulting works carry a deeply expressive, tactile quality that resonates in the current cultural context, particularly at a time when rapid technological change, artificial intelligence and digital “readymades” pose conceptual challenges for contemporary artists and society more broadly. Ziegler earned his BFA in Fine Art from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2010. His work is represented in major museum and private collections, including the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona, the Rubell Museum in Miami, the Contemporary Art Foundation in Tokyo, the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia in Athens, the Longlati Foundation in Shanghai and Colección Solo in Madrid. His recent solo exhibitions include Reverse Paintings at Almine Rech Brussels (2024), The Essential Figures at Almine Rech New York (2023), The Echo of Picasso at Museo Picasso Málaga (2023), presentations at Art Basel Miami Meridians (2022), The Fourth Wall at the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art (2018) and Et in Arte Ego at Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea in Milan (2014). Internationally known for his monumental mural work, Ziegler was commissioned by the United Nations to create a commemorative mural for its 70th anniversary in Oakland, California, and has been teaching design history and theory at Stanford University since 2019.