Works in its own pristine devices
In its own pristine devices, Lois Bielefeld and Marzena Ziejka explore opposing impulses: wildness within order, and order imposed upon wildness. Bielefeld's luminous photographs reveal the unexpected life thriving in "freeway islands"—the carved-up patches created by highway on- and off-ramps where nature persists amid infrastructure. Their endoscopic videos offer uncanny, bug's-eye perspectives, discovering vitality in overlooked margins. Ziejka, conversely, imposes form and structure onto organic materials, constructing deliberate installations that honor material properties while asserting human order. Through patient accumulation and repetition, she transforms ephemeral materials into enduring forms.
Bielefeld illuminates what grows wild in person-made spaces; Ziejka builds controlled forms from wild materials. One uses artificial light to reveal nature's persistence; the other uses careful assembly to shape nature's chaos. Both demand intimate looking and share a tactile sensitivity, but they arrive at different questions: Where does wildness survive within our constructed world? What happens when we impose our own systems onto natural forms? Together, they reorient our understanding of what counts as pristine, natural, or wild.
Portrait Society
Gallery of Contemporary Art
Historic Third Ward
207 E. Buffalo St. Ste. 526
Milwaukee, WI 53202