If nature doesn’t have borders, why do we keep building fences?
That’s a question Fargo artist Tobias Zikmund asks audiences to grapple with in his exhibition “Electric Fence,” now showing through March 15 at The Rourke Art Gallery and Museum in Moorhead.
The collection of oil paintings, digital photo work and dramatic sculpture, all inspired by an aerial view of a small parcel of land near his family’s farm in northeastern North Dakota, is intended to ignite curiosity about the land humans occupy and the borders they build around it.
“Looking at landscapes that have been made orderly, I search for the peripheries and spaces between which forced orderliness is rejected and landscape’s power and self-assertion shimmer below the surface,” Zikmund wrote in an artist statement.
The aerial view used in the collection was borrowed from Google Maps images Zikmund found while searching on the internet for the perfect representation of borders we don’t always see until we’re presented with the bigger picture.
“I’m interested in the orderliness we put onto this organic landscape and then the places where the landscape doesn’t allow that to happen,” he said. “Maybe there’s a body of water or some sort of drop-off that breaks the grid. I like that element of domination, and how we think we can make the land perfectly orderly just to farm efficiently. And like an electric fence, the borders hold charge—they’ll bite back.”
The results are a collection of paintings representing the same piece of land over and over again, an act of acknowledgment and documentation.
“The series is less about the grid and more so about our power over the landscape and modifying it [as humans see fit],” Zikmund added. “And then equally important, and I think something that we don’t always look at right away is, how are we documenting what we witness?”
Today, at age 26, Zikmund has already carved out a piece of the local artistic landscape, too.
So far since graduating from MSUM in 2023, he’s completed a residency at the New York Mills Cultural Center, spoken at TEDxFargo, and hosted exhibitions at The Spirit Room in Fargo and WICK Gallery in Minneapolis. Several of his projects have received grants from The Arts Partnership, the North Dakota Community Foundation and Springboard for the Arts.
Zikmund currently works at North Dakota Council on the Arts where he manages a public art program dedicated to regional creative projects similar to the Enchanted Highway in western North Dakota.
Zikmund grew up on a pig farm near Pisek, ND, in the northeast corner of the state. His rural upbringing was “typical,” he said, in that his days were filled with farm chores and 4H club, though he had to travel to nearby towns for art class.
“It was in 4H where we were doing lots of sewing and crafts, and just making things, whether they were explicitly art or not, I don’t know,” Zikmund laughed. “But that’s where I realized art is just part of me.”
Zikmund ties his love of art to many of his early experiences, not just 4H.
“It was at the county fair where I sat down in front of somebody who could intelligently speak about art with me,” he said. “The community gave me lots of chances to learn and support me.”
Support for his artistic efforts are long-lasting. Zikmund’s very first art teacher attended his gallery opening earlier in February.
A secondary aspect of “Electric Fence” is the “less macroscopic” photo work Zikmund describes as “entering the garden.”
“My photo work is more personal and intimate,” he said, noting the photos in the exhibit are microscopic and reveal the up-close-and-personal nature of nature itself.
“The captured actions are vaguely ritualistic, their slowly morphing mysteries simulating a glimpse of the divine, like a back-straightening grasp of the electric fence that leaves one awe-struck, aching, and repentant,” Zikmund wrote in his artist statement.
Zikmund refers to the pieces as “photo work” because “This is not conventional photography. I’ve manipulated these scans into a discrete body of work” that complements the examination of borders and domination.
Since the exhibition’s opening, Zikmund has been busy encouraging community members to visit the museum to view “Electric Fence,” which is adjacent to works by another local artist: Ben Rheault.
“There’s so much to look at right now,” he said of the museum, acknowledging the efforts of museum staff in bringing relevant, timely and engaging art to the community.
There’s another month to go see “Electric Fence” in person. In the meantime, Zikmund hopes we’ll all slow down and question whether or not the fences we build around ourselves are necessary—or not.
About The Rourke
The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum is a community art institution aimed at sustaining the region’s shared artistic and cultural heritage. The Rourke has been dedicated to showcasing regional talent with artistic excellence. Visit therourke.org for more information.
