Arte Sempre x Giro
- PHOTOS: Max Houtzager
- VIDEO: Albert Strietmann
- LOCATION: California
Cycling is an indispensable element to the creativity that you see in Arte Sempre, one of artist Zio Ziegler’s many creative outlets.
Riding bicycles gives Zio clarity and a playful medium to connect with friends outside of the studio. Going faster than one another and joking around, but also putting himself into a state focused solely on the trail immediately in front of the two wheels beneath him. For Zio one of the key facets of this pursuit that he always comes back to is the creative nature of riding – a dynamic and ever-changing connection to people and the natural environment, and a true sense of freeness from any ‘practice’, categories, or disciplines.
“The artist is expected to behave like a commodity, when innovation is the mother of all art,” he says. “By diversifying and ignoring the rules, you constantly find something new.” Zio’s approach to riding is completely fluid with his approach to art. He finds solace only by being able to move between disciplines and categories without hesitation. If he were to obey the rules and become compartmentalized as just a painter, or just a road cyclist or just a mountain biker, the freedom that leads to discovery and creativity would disappear.
Of course he means no disrespect in abandoning the rules. Quite the opposite – Zio sees the beauty, the potential, the benefits of each category – and the best bits of each discipline can be recognized in his work. By continuously exploring different approaches to cycling and creating art, Zio has found a personalized method for finding synergy between the two pursuits. This synergy gives him clarity and a drive to express creativity and connect with the world around him.
He takes this unobstructed clarity back into the studio, and expresses it onto not only canvas but also sculpture and now a line of shoes, helmets, caps and gloves. It brings Zio’s art and the Arte Sempre ethos back into the natural environment that enabled it.
