Toby Ziegler was born in 1972 in London, where he currently lives and works. His paintings and sculptures orchestrate a continual oscillation between abstraction and figuration, and between classical composition and its digital manipulation and obfuscation. His process often begins with the appropriation of an image which, through endless reproduction, has passed into the visual subconscious. The image is then rendered by computer into modular planes, worked on, developed, and modified. This practice alludes to the degeneration of images and artifacts through processes of technological reproduction and physical erosion. The works occupy and explore the field between formal composition and its collapse, where shapes and patterns are disturbed by gestural smudges and sprays.
Ziegler has had solo shows at Hepworth Wakefield, England (2014), NewArtCentre-Sculpture Park and Gallery, Salisbury, England (2014), Simon Lee Gallery, Hong Kong (2014), Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin (2013), Simon Lee Gallery, London (2012, 2006, and 2005), the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland (2012), New Art Gallery Walsall, England (2011), Project 176, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2010), Parkhaus im Malkastenpark, Dusseldorf, Germany (2008), and Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, England (2007), among others. He has been in group exhibitions at Winter Palace and 21er Haus, Belvedere Museum, Vienna (2014), Tokyo Station Gallery (2014), the Itami City Museum of Art, Japan (2014), the Museum of Art Kochi, Japan (2014), the Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania, Australia (2013), Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna (2012), the Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2010), the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia (2009), Turner Contemporary Project Space, Margate, England (2008), and Tate Britain, London (2007), among many others.