Distrito 4

Iris Schomaker

20 Sep - 07 Nov 2012

© Iris Schomaker
Untitled, 2012
Watercolor and oil on paper
115,8 x 65,5 cm.
IRIS SCHOMAKER
Speak more truth
20 September - 7 November 2012

Distrito 4 opens the season of 2012-13 with the exhibition Speak more truth of Iris Schomaker . This is the first show of Schomaker (Stade, Germany, 1973) with the gallery. Speak more truth is the artist ́s most recent work where she represents reduced subjects to their essential form: individual figures in empty spaces, faces wrapped in caps and scarves, landscapes. Her image construction formula achieves an irrational union between man, landscape and animals. What the artist represents in her work is secondary; the works are based in the process of construction itself, exploring the different possibilities of painting. The artist finds her own visual code in tension between figurative painting and abstraction.

Schomaker in principle uses paper as her media. The process of representation is based on drawing the contours of her figures with coal, whereby it is characteristic of her work with the search of movements of the lines that document the path to get to those forms. These outlines are mixed with paint; Schomaker uses thin layers of watercolor, gouache, acrylic and oil varnish. If too much paint is applied it is sanded away or washed away to position the figures in the discovered place after the creation process of the work. Streaks of water and paint run down the image, the incomplete quality of the works is consciously emphasized.

His palette consists mainly in the use of black and white, enriched with blues and greens. The figures do not have gender, this seems to be something insignificant in her work, the models lose their individuality, their physical characteristics to become painting, reducing these elements into geometry and even in ornamental signs. This allows Schomaker to explore the painting and its potential towards abstraction, studying these visual solutions Schomaker gives her works an evocation of peace and distance.

The large format works have no frame, hanging on the wall directly, since they are works which encroach on the wall itself and in the rooms, they have no limits. Without the framework the works demand space, they want to be seen in and out of the established space.

The work of Schomaker is part of important international collections such as Berlinische Galerie Berlín, Deutsche Bank Sammlung Frankfurt am Main, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Sammlung des Landes.

Schomaker (born in 1973 in Stade; lives and works in Berlin) studied from 1994 to 1998 at Muthesius Kunsthochschule in Kiel, Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, and Academy of Fine Arts in Bergen, Norway. In 1999-2000, she was a fellow at Künstlerhaus Lauenburg. She participated in 2000/2001 at the 47. Landesschau Schleswig-Holstein at Kunsthalle zu Kiel. Her works have been on view at group shows at Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven (2000/01), Berlinische Galerie (2007, 2010) and U37 Raum für Kunst, Berlin. In 2009, Landeskulturzentrum Salzau held a solo exhibition of her work entitled Schomaker: Songs of Love and Hate.
 

Tags: Iris Schomaker