Contemporary artist Dana Schutz gave an artist’s talk last Wednesday night at Nagel Art Studios about her journey and development through her paintings and drawings, particularly focusing on her inspirations.
The talk was sponsored by the Hamilton Visiting Artist Program in collaboration with the Denver Art Museum, in which artists are invited to speak on campus about their work.
Artists also interact with students and work on projects. Last year artist Rupprecht Matthies visited, working with students on a piece hung in the Denver Art Museum (DAM).
Schutz is known for her unconventional subject matter; she famously painted a group of twelve portraits that explore people in unconventional moments, the most renowned being “Sneeze” from 2001.
As an artist whose portraits vary from the grotesque and the bizarre, Schutz was invited by painting professor Deborah Howard to talk with students enrolled in the Painting People studio art class.
She met with the students last Friday, critiqued their work and gave them an assignment.
She will return at the end of the quarter to critique the artwork students have created since her first visit.
Schutz has been featured in 22 solo exhibitions and 47 group exhibitions across the United States and internationally. Her work has also been spotlighted in several publications including Vogue, the New Yorker and the Irish Times.
Schutz began her education at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where she completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in a five-year program in 2000. She then went on to get her Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University.
Schutz’s lecture explored her difficulties in graduate school trying to find something to paint.
“I asked myself, ‘How do I make an impossible painting?’ What would be the last thing you see before you die?’” said Schutz.
The answers to these questions turned out to be the basis of a series of paintings she would make about a character she dubbed “Frank,” the last man on earth.
Schutz discussed her different modes of inspiration, ranging from the gender-neutral rock bands of the 90’s, particularly the Breeders, to the doodles she would create while on the telephone with friends.
These doodles created the subjects of another series where the characters were people who would eat themselves.
“I really liked this series because people seemed so open and generative,” said Schutz.
In this series entitled “The Self-Eaters and the People Who Love Them,” the characters not only ate themselves, but they recreate themselves from their own body parts.
“They are self-producers,” said Schutz.
In recent years, she has moved away from painting and attempted to add more drawing and mark-making into her pieces by using oil crayon and ink.
“I enjoy ink because it becomes all about the mark, you can’t just erase it, it’s just there,” said Schutz.
When asked by a member of the audience what she wants to show the world through her art, she replied, “I want my paintings to feel like people, like they have life.”
Schutz explained that she started creating paints that had narratives behind them.
According to Schutz, she paints “to rearrange the hierarchies of the world through my art.”
Schutz has two Denver shows opening in the next few months. Her latest works on paper will be on display at the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art from Sept. 21 through Jan. 13.
According to their website, the exhibition draws from a long line of Abstract Expressionism and will “feature new drawings, as well as watercolor monoprints produced specifically for this presentation.”
From Nov. 11 through Jan 13, DAM will be displaying Schutz’s traveling exhibit, “If a Face Had Wheels,” a large-scale retrospective of Schutz’s work from the past 10 years, including 30 paintings and eight drawings.
According to DAM’s website, the show will exhibit Schutz’s “imaginary stories [and] hypothetical situations that are bizarre and impossible, yet oddly compelling.”
