Matt Ziemke

A landscape is reflective of the values and needs of those who live and build within it. This in mind, my work reflects the forms, structures, and processes that surround the location, extraction and consumption of resources. I am drawn to the ways in which the landscape can ultimately be defined by our activity. The construction of the structures that accompany this extraction and transportation is primarily guided by a concern for efficiency and economy, making my attraction to their formal qualities a seemingly conflicted one.

This conflicted attraction drives my pursuit of attractive surfaces and playful yet precarious compositions. Both imagination and play fill the inherent holes in my understanding of the complex processes and structures that make up our built and natural landscapes. Looking to natural physical processes like dripping, bubbling, splashing, or accumulation which shape the world around us reveals a fascinating contrast to our modes of construction. I am curious about the points of glaring contrast between natural and artificial orders; their differences come into question where other points converge. My work is a conglomeration of parts that result from this line of thinking. Sometimes vague, sometimes specific, I aim to question the implications of processes and structures that make up our built and natural environments as they define the places we inhabit.

-- Matt Ziemke