Zina Mussmann 2025
Zina Mussmann explores the relationship between abstraction and consciousness and focuses on aspects of inner experience that resist language, representation, and description. Drawing from literary and philosophical reflections on the ineffable, such as Samuel Beckett’s fragmented monologues and David Chalmers’ concept of qualia, her paintings investigate the fluid and subjective nature of perception. Through a process that begins digitally as stream-of-consciousness drawings and evolves through layered airbrushed stencils, she creates stratified compositions that evoke time, memory, and inner space. Zina views abstraction not as an escape from reality but as a means of engaging with the limits of awareness, inviting viewers to inhabit a space of uncertainty, ambiguity, and reflection.
As a faculty member in First Year Experience since 2015, Zina leads the Visual Language course, where she emphasizes the interdependence of idea and process. Passionate about helping first-year students develop as both thinkers and makers, she fosters a classroom environment rooted in community, collaboration, and curiosity. Zina has exhibited her work regionally and nationally and has been featured in numerous art and design publications. Her practice engages ongoing conversations about painting as illusion and object. In earlier projects, Zina co-founded Greymatter Gallery in Milwaukee and co-created 365 Artists 365 Days, an online platform that celebrated artistic exchange and community. These efforts continue to inform her belief in art as a shared and evolving conversation.
Zina Mussmann, “Synthetic Dawn,” 2025.
Zina Mussmann, “Gravity error,” 2025.
Zina Mussmann, “Breathe Then Comply.”
Zina Mussmann, “Meditation on the Futility of Linear Time (2),” 2025.
View more of Zina’s work at zinamussmann.com