Stephen Schultz - Artist
DRAWINGPAINTINGS
The aim of most artists, I imagine, is to find a meaningful marriage of process and content in hopes of describing those moments that compel each of us .
At the core of most of my work is a navigation of the confluence of microcosm and macrocosm wherein the small and intimate might overlap the universal and epic revealing meaning... the mystery that activates the moments between action and reaction, between the light and the dark, and allows movement between the corporeal and the ethereal.
In the oil paintings, process and content, object and ground, evolve slowly, cumulatively generating an organic flux within which movement, shape, form and eventually objects and figures emerge or submerge until resonance of relationship coalesce into narrative. Since the made up stories in these paintings are often the product of process, the subject often becomes this process of discovery. There are no preliminary sketches. As in most of my work the stories are made up as I go along.
TWICETOLDTALES refers to the manner in which stories evolve in retelling and evince a reconsideration/reinterpretation of process and content. While not abandoned here, color’s seductiveness has given way to black and white acrylic as a direct and open vernacular for story telling. The process is immediate... applying alternate layers of black or white.The pieces included in these paintings address the figure/ground relationship from an opposite direction as do the oil paintings and often employ a more distilled role for color and value, while allowing line a more significant contribution. Rather than paint fashioning a substantive flux, the raw canvas provides an overall matrix wherein partially erased iterations refer back to the canvas ground and begin to condense into form and articulate shape. Much of my time is spent erasing and scrubbing in an attempt to physically integrate marks back into the warp and weave of the canvas.
DRAWINGPAINTINGS utilize varied materials and sometimes even include a homemade graphite water ink. This is perhaps a more minimalist approach to finding meaning and direction within in the process, but shedding the weight has resulted in an urgency that is vital and to the point.
Much like the object/ground relationship present in Shuimo/water ink painting, the ground becomes fog that occasionally lifts and allows glimpses of the world surrounding us.
- Stephen Schultz
The aim of most artists, I imagine, is to find a meaningful marriage of process and content in hopes of describing those moments that compel each of us .
At the core of most of my work is a navigation of the confluence of microcosm and macrocosm wherein the small and intimate might overlap the universal and epic revealing meaning... the mystery that activates the moments between action and reaction, between the light and the dark, and allows movement between the corporeal and the ethereal.
In the oil paintings, process and content, object and ground, evolve slowly, cumulatively generating an organic flux within which movement, shape, form and eventually objects and figures emerge or submerge until resonance of relationship coalesce into narrative. Since the made up stories in these paintings are often the product of process, the subject often becomes this process of discovery. There are no preliminary sketches. As in most of my work the stories are made up as I go along.
TWICETOLDTALES refers to the manner in which stories evolve in retelling and evince a reconsideration/reinterpretation of process and content. While not abandoned here, color’s seductiveness has given way to black and white acrylic as a direct and open vernacular for story telling. The process is immediate... applying alternate layers of black or white.The pieces included in these paintings address the figure/ground relationship from an opposite direction as do the oil paintings and often employ a more distilled role for color and value, while allowing line a more significant contribution. Rather than paint fashioning a substantive flux, the raw canvas provides an overall matrix wherein partially erased iterations refer back to the canvas ground and begin to condense into form and articulate shape. Much of my time is spent erasing and scrubbing in an attempt to physically integrate marks back into the warp and weave of the canvas.
DRAWINGPAINTINGS utilize varied materials and sometimes even include a homemade graphite water ink. This is perhaps a more minimalist approach to finding meaning and direction within in the process, but shedding the weight has resulted in an urgency that is vital and to the point.
Much like the object/ground relationship present in Shuimo/water ink painting, the ground becomes fog that occasionally lifts and allows glimpses of the world surrounding us.
- Stephen Schultz