Schoolwerth lives and works in New York.
Schoolwerths art makes you feel dizzy.
Schoolwerths art involves multiple (re-)production steps.
Schoolwerth sculpts, takes photographs, digitally manipulates, prints, and paints.
Schoolwerth depicts the contemporary human form in a digital reality.
The Appoinments Become Her (2003), oil on canvas
Session (2005), oil on linen
Fucking Bananas (Rigged #27) (2022), oil, acrylic, and inkjet print on canvas
SELECTED WORKS WITH RESPECTIVE ORIGINALS
Portrait of ‘The Supper At Emmaus’ (after Caravaggio) (2012), oil, acrylic, chalk, and inkjet print on canvas
Portrait of ‘Barge On A River At Sunset’ (after Pynacker) (2010), oil on canvas
Portrait of ‘Musicians and Drinkers’ (after Le Valentin de Boulogne) (2010), oil on canvas
Every piece of the series “Portraits of Paintings” (2009-2013) translates a single historical European painting from its original matter to a regenerated version of its subject(s). Schoolwerth stacks the depicted bodies into a vertically overlapping geometric complexity, molding all layers into a compressed one, resulting in images simultaneously containing comparatively less and more information. While most of the background and surrounding space is transformed into a blank monochrome nothing, visually reducing the scene, the foreground is further condensed into abstracted details.
In his portrait of ‘Musicians and Drinkers’ we see all four human forms reconstructed into a new shape that is surrounded by a sea of blank grey. The entity contains so many single visual objects, instead of identifying a character, we merely perceive a collage of colors and shapes. Inspired by the depiction of human form in the digital sphere, Schoolwerth breaks down bodies into single bits of information. Although painted by hand, the resulting ‘portrait’ reminds us of a (failed) AI-generated image, an error in processing digital data.
floating
human form becomes fog
readable, and thus unreadable
now an entity, and thus not ‘one’
endless versions of the same
I am tired of choosing
I want it to choose me
so I can go back to enjoying it
Referenceshuman form becomes fog
readable, and thus unreadable
now an entity, and thus not ‘one’
endless versions of the same
I am tired of choosing
I want it to choose me
so I can go back to enjoying it
Petzel
Pieter Schoolwerth (b. 1970)
mixed media
oct 2 2024
№2
mixed media
oct 2 2024
№2