"Behold the accumulation of a single soul; a life lived in intensity and torrent. A dense mountainous cloud shaped from desire and obsession, piling up, engulfing its originator, and sprawl- ing out across the horizon; the overwhelming drive to create, lest one disappear. It is to awaken in the dead of night in a cold sweat, with an abstract yearning. A pull to compulsively document, preserve, protect, and project out into the nebulous future. To shout from the rooftop: my life happened. The people I loved, the things I have suffered, the wonders I have seen, hold significance; they existed. Not merely a blink in eternity, a singular flake in a gust of snow, or tears awash in the rain. Somewhere beyond the intellectual, there is a primal impulsive squall, dictated and directed by desire, to compile. Defying logic, we record light in past moments that no longer exist nor will again." — Joe Ziolkowski, Quester of Light

Joe Ziolkowski (Jacksonville, FL, United States) received a Masters of Science in Education, Concentration: Art Education from Nazareth College of Rochester. A Master of Fine Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Bachelor of Science from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Consultant and Advisor: Implementation of Online training education services to facilitate Virtual Exchange workshops on distant learning, overseeing training to develop inter-cultural assignments. (Current-2021). SUNY Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence for 2017-18, Scholarship and Creative Activities. Associate Professor of Photography, Art and Art History at SUNY Genesee Community College, Batavia, NY. (2012-2020) He was contracted as Projects and Operations Coordinator, Center for Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), SUNY Global Affairs Office, Albany, NY. (2018-2019) He has been awarded artist residencies at Visual Studies Workshop (2019), Paul ArtSpace (2016), Jentel Foundation (2013 & 2019), Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts (2012), English Harbour Arts Centre (2011) and Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts (2021 & 2010). His work has been widely exhibited, nationally and inter-nationally and he is the author of three monographs, Walking the Line (1992) Pressure (1997) and Questor of Light (2023).