Spotlight on an artist: Frank Zeidler
"Gods, Earth, and People; they are all one and the same."
BY KJ O'BRIEN
Frank Eric Zeidler creates artwork deeply rooted in his philosophy. His art revolves around a common metaphor transcending several medias. Through experience, fortuitous epiphany, intuition, and tragedy, Zeidler's art has continuously evolved giving its audience an intimate insight into the depths of his imagination. It can be interpreted as a depiction of the organic origins of the human body and the evanescent nature of the human spirit. Zeidler calls this "painting the Gods".
Born in Winnipeg in 1953 to German parents, Zeidler's family moved to Vancouver when he was a young boy. It was there that he developed a keen interest in art, and believed from an early age that he would be an artist. His mother taught him that if he could draw the human figure, he could draw anything he wished. In 1971, Zeidler enrolled at the University of British Columbia where he studied art. He then spent most of the decade traveling and continuing his studies in Europe, Manitoba, and eventually returning to British Columbia.
In the early 1980's, Zeidler began a long period of work as a draftsman for various Vancouver based firms as a means of making ends meet, as well as painting and traveling in pursuit of inspiration. Although his technical ability as an artist vastly improved during this period, he felt that the result lacked direction; this was frustrating and emotionally unsatisfying. During the spring of 1988 Zeidler was visiting his future wife in France when he briefly envisioned her with a palm tree growing from her head. It was in this moment that he experienced his artistic rebirth - he established a connection between the individual and their environment. Within this visceral renaissance lay the foundation on which Zeidler has built his body of work.
Married, and raising a young family in Vancouver in the early 1990's, Zeidler celebrated his happy life in a series of drawings. Eventually, he began cutting figures of pieces of paper and creating large collage pieces based around his metaphor. Central to these pieces were his now characteristic silhouette depictions of the human form. The arbitrary delineation of the figures illustrates the lower body as a type root directly connecting them to ground and the flowering of the torso as further exaggeration of their earthly inception. This artistic achievement was heralded in 1998 in an exhibition of collages.
After four years of battling cancer, Zeidler's son tragically succumbed to his illness in the early part of the new millennium. During a long period of grief and despair, Zeidler began the most intense and focused phase of his creative work. Beyond the assimilation of loss, and the redefinition of his life and meaning, Zeidler was able to redefine his art. "By combining the breakthroughs I'd made using drawing and collage, the figures I had depicted as unified with the earth now also became spirit without the loss of their physical earth-bound nature. The absence of material within the figure leaves a metaphorical shadow, and so the body can be seen as spirit. It is spirit that animates the body and separates us from the earth we come out of, if only for a brief moment."
Zeidler is exhibiting at Swirl Gallery for the month of October.
