first published in Zio Ziegler, Bernard Gwilliam and the Quantum Modernism (SF: Jules Maeght Gallery, 2016)Zio Ziegler, The Three Modes of Paintings, oil, acrylic, and gouache on canvas, 96 x 72 inches, 2016.

ZIO ZIEGLER: (self) Portrait of the Artist

By Tamsin Smith & Matt Gonzalez

“To speak of these things and to try to understand their nature and, having understood it, to try slowly and humbly and constantly to express, to press out again, from the gross earth or what it brings forth, from sound and shape and colour which are the prison gates of our soul, an image of the beauty we have come to understand—that is art.” – Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

It seems fitting to begin an essay on Zio Ziegler with a literary reference. Conversations with Ziegler display his broad interest in contemporary and classical…