Zerek Kempf works primarily with video and time-based media that stages his own body within sparse sets composed of found objects and digital interventions. Drawing from the formal languages of minimalist sculpture and narrative filmmaking, he constructs realities that are sustained through action, observation, and belief. In doing so, he surveys structures that shape knowledge, identity, and truth. This pursuit extends to the dynamic space between autonomy and restriction, where the fault line between agency and constraint becomes increasingly nuanced.
Informed by cognitive philosophy, Kempf’s work embraces visual mechanics of deception, blending sleight-of-hand tactics of stage magic with the visceral risk of cinematic stunt work. A negotiation of perception and reality occurs in his studio, a mutable space that becomes a stage where a few coats of paint, patience, and postproduction manipulation establish a threshold where the raw and the uncanny intertwine.
Kempf is based in Brooklyn, New York. He holds an MFA from the University of California San Diego (2006) and a BFA from The Ohio State University (2003). He has participated in residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Vermont Studio Center, The Atlantic Center for the Arts, Fountainhead, and the New York Art Residency & Studio Foundation. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions including The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; DeVos Art Museum, Marquette; Waag Society, Amsterdam; and CA2M Museum, Madrid.