NADA New York 2024

This paradox among visual signs in Ziemba’s work is underscored in the fantastical elements of Ziemba’s paintings. Floating witches’ hats, cartoon eyeballs, feet and objects are suspended in space like the parlor tricks of early photography. Self-described “gimmicks,” these motifs negate, confuse and undermine any impulse to lay meaning or hierarchy to what is being seen.

“There’s a wonderful image I got in my head when I read Caetano Veloso’s book, ‘Tropical Truth’: culture itself as a big trash heap with layers and layers of junk piled on top of each other, intermingling, stuff staining other stuff, bits poking out, all of it determining the topography for everything deposited later.. The act of littering in the world and ‘littering’ oil paint on a painting become the same thing.”