Julie Schumer Artist Statement

Julie Schumer In the Studio

I paint medium and large format abstracts in an expressionist and gestural style. My current body of work, begun in mid 2018, involves the exploration of coming and going, of appearing and disappearing lines and shapes, created with a variety of drawing tools and acrylic paint, as well as a limited palette, which when completed are multi layered and complex. The lines are both agitated and controlled, with forms emerging and dissolving simultaneously. The softly colored surfaces appear to glow from within as a result of the effect of many layers of thinly applied paint rubbed on and off the canvas, panel or paper. The works incorporate both intense raw emotion and quiet tranquility and are a reflection of my recent experiences at any given time. They are at once mysterious, moody, luminous yet airy, elegant yet powerful, and range from the contemplative and atmospheric to the stormy, reflecting my own interior landscape, and on occasion, my reaction to my physical surroundings. My purpose is to give voice to what is felt but unseen.

The paintings in my figurative series on paper arise organically from the paper, and appear through subtle layers of paint that are applied and partially removed over a heavily textured surface. The textured, layered, ambiguous forms of the figure produces an image that appears to have been uncovered, discovered at an archeological site. The figures mix a feeling of the ancient with the contemporary. The additive and subtractive nature of the process of their creation furthers this quality. The paintings present as abstract shapes, lines and colors that suddenly comprise a recognizable figure or group of figures. They are not necessarily male or female, but rather contain all of humanity