Tobias Zikmund is a painter and public artist living in Fargo, North Dakota. He’s drawn to landscapes that have been made orderly, particularly the peripheries or spaces between where this orderliness falters. Tobias makes oil paintings of aerial landscape imagery, featuring sites that have been extremely modified by agricultural, extractive, or improvement uses. Exploring the farmland of northeast North Dakota – sites personally familiar – he repeats select images, transforming and shaping them through repeated use. 

 

His work in sculpture and photo extends this on a more personal, immediate scale. He explores places of affection and their associated materials, collecting plant matter, ephemera, and industrial materials, later forcing them into orderly compositions, simulating their natural states, or exploring their personal significance.

 

He studied painting and art history at Minnesota State University Moorhead. Recent exhibitions include Garden Variety, Spirit Room, Fargo; Sticks and Stones, Moonrise Café, Fargo; and Spring Awaits, WICK Gallery, Minneapolis. Tobias has received grants from The Arts Partnership, the North Dakota Community Foundation, and Springboard for the Arts. Projects of his include Pony Club, a domestic gallery project; the Stables, a group studio; and the annual Great Mail Art Exchange, with international reach. Find more from Tobias on Instagram (@tobiaszikmund) or online at tobiaszikmund.com.

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Tobias would love to collaborate with you on an arts-based project, particularly if it includes other interests like rural vitality, community building, leadership development for artists and youth, and language and cultural exchange. He'd be happy to discuss it over coffee -- served black, with a touch of cream.