Jurgen Ziesmann: Between Fantasy and Biology

“I am an artist.” It took me more than 20 years of daily drawing and painting to believe that about myself.

“I am a biologist.” That is what I wanted to become when I was 11 years old. That is my profession today. I am still enjoying it. I do research on chemical ecology of insects. I teach human anatomy and physiology to future nurses, athletic trainers, and health promotion majors. 

In all my art, the shapes I draw and paint are what I saw in nature, patterns I observed during experiments, what I studied when looking through a microscope. Most of my artworks start with a patch of color, surrounded by a line or two. From this humble beginning, lines grow out from tiny corners, color patches flow out from small inaccuracies.  That way, I add more shapes and shades, and quite complex designs appear over time. This process has some similarities with biological growth processes, how cells, tissues develop and grow. The microscope opened up a whole world of mostly unknown biology in front of my eyes. I love discovering the microcosm that surrounds us, usually not even noticed by most. I make those patterns part of my design, but morphed into new combinations, often completely abstract designs. Because most biological structures are based on cells, also most of my creatures are surrounded and separated by black outlines. I love that my pictures often have some of a comic book like character. 

When I start my pictures, I usually do not have a planned outcome in mine. The images develop slowly, depicting a hidden fantasy world in my head. There are cities, houses, trees, animals, underwater worlds with no end in sight. It is one of the most exciting effects for me, that I can discover something about myself. Something that needs to be discovered in each new painting. It is this process of growth and discovery while painting my pictures that makes me most happy. 

I grew up in one of the most rural areas of Germany, with my parents and three other families, in a 22 inhabitant village surrounded by forests, hills and fields. From early on, I loved everything that had to do with science, distant countries, and also art. Instead of farming or working with my parents in their shop, I followed my dreams and studied biology, graduated, completed my doctorate in animal physiology. During that time, I also started to produce art, as my personal way to relax from learning for university: pencil drawings: portraits of people from all parts of the world. 

I have little formal education as artist; most of that by my friend and mentor Guy Kinnear, with whom I took four semester long university courses. He taught me to be consistent, to keep producing art. I made great progress due to his teaching and working alongside amazing art students, challenged by them, their work and their thinking. I became proficient in art because I work 20 to 25 hours every week on my art, besides my full time job as scientist teaching at a college/university. 

My profession as biologist brought me from Germany to England, New Zealand, and finally the USA – but wherever I was, I also kept drawing and painting. Now I am professor of biology and teach future nurses and medical doctors. At the same time art became even more important to me as a way of expressing myself, relaxation, and meditation. I noticed that my friends liked my art, wanted to hang pictures in their houses. That finally brought me, the introvert scientists, after 30 years of regular drawing and painting, to look for opportunities of showing art. Since 2013 I show regularly at Galleries in Southern California and Virginia. 

Additional information

www.jurzi.org

Jurgen Ziesmann: When Science and Art Combine

https://streetlightmag.com/2022/08/22/jurgen-ziesmann-when-science-and-art-combine/

Jurgen Ziesmann, Untitled, Alcoholic inks on synthetic paper