A nonprofit art organization promoting art, artists, and land conservation.
Gallery 224 presents,
Jeff Zimpel
ARTservancy Artist Resident, Jeff Zimpel
This exhibition features artwork inspired by Forest Beach
Migratory Preserve, supported by Ozaukee Washington Land Trust.
Artist's Reception
Join Us Saturday Evening,
September 30th from
6:00-7:30pm
for an evening of
art & conversation,
celebrating the culmination of
Jeff year long residency.
Jeff Zimpel is an interdisciplinary mark-maker, painter, and photographer, who develops site-specific installation experiences, inviting creative participation from those who encounter the art. Jeff received his BFA in Graphic Design from Cardinal Stritch University (‘09) and his MFA in Art & Social Engagement from UW-Milwaukee (‘21). He taught art and design at the secondary and collegiate levels and is currently working with Arts@Large as an Instructional Designer. In his studio practice he is focused on curating acts of becoming, on the deep exploration of the world of mark-making, and on encouraging an ecological approach to living and making.
Forest Beach is a Living Studio
Jeff Zimpel
Forest Beach is a Living Studio is my response and engagement with a special feeling of time throughout this residency. This time emerges from regular visits to a place like Forest Beach Migratory Preserve, and I call it “Boundary Time.” Though challenging to pin down in any objective way, it’s easy to pick up on the idea that it is distinctly different from other temporalities (i.e. banker’s time, or city time...etc). It’s a kind that flows at the outer edge of the village, where human-time is a rarity and the spirit of the other-than-human can emerge and thrive.
The great balance to my year has been a quiet courtship with this special boundary time thanks to the gift of a wondrous residency. ARTServancy and OWLT are on to something special with their partnership, and I hope many more artists are presented with such a gift.
I spent a year chasing around spectral color, holding still for hours listening to the trees speak, gazing into the darkness of the living night, and watching the great river of time flow and change like an ephemeral pond. Forest Beach Migratory Preserve speaks a powerful creative dialect - the so-called “Language of the Birds.” The ecstatic hum of this place revealed that it was a living studio, one that inspired many photographs, writings, and brushes. My reflections and annotations on this special time and place will grow into the gallery over the course of this exhibit.