Scott Zimmer

ARTIST STATEMENT

Scott Zimmer is an American artist who works in painting, ceramics, and the garden to explore the effects that form, color, and texture have on us emotionally. Working from a place emphasizing emotional intelligence and intuitive processes, Zimmer manipulates these materials, asking us to question our personal aesthetic in relation to notions of beauty. He does this by inviting the viewer to experience intimate moments that are gateways to broader meditative mindscapes. Through embracing processes across media that mirror cycles of growth and decay, layers emerge of unexpected arrangements and patterns that allude to hidden intelligences. The hierarchy of linear progress is undermined as organized chaos is frozen in time, whether it be on the canvas, in the kiln or growing from the ground up. 

Gardening has been a major influence for Zimmer, who believes that to observe up close the expansion and collapse of natural structures allows one to draw parallels to our own physicality and mortality. This observance of the more concealed acts in nature has shaped his desire to locate the unknown in the studio, which is accomplished through trading an approach of control for a more intuitive one akin to choreography. His particular path to abstraction is inspired by collecting piles of weeds and spent flowers, what is left behind. Paring down and abstracting these elements allows the debris-hovering between life and death-to be seen through a new lens. These explorations continue to stack upon past queries, investigating how form, color, and texture can lead to visceral emotional experiences.