UCSD Open Studios: Louis Schmidt

Louis Schmidt

I embrace the realm of 'in-between', both metaphorically and aesthetically... I exist within an intersection of discourses... between skateboard/graffiti/tattoo art culture and "high" art culture... between the metaphysical and the profane. For the past few years, I've been drawing nearly exclusively. Drawing itself is an in-between act, between doodling and painting, between the developed and the undeveloped. I'm letting my hand be as crude as it wants to be, pitting that crudity against the slightest of formal drawing techniques: a nicely shaded bit here, and precisely rendered line there. I'm also developing an in-between method of installation-denying typical, sterile linearity, layering drawings one over top of another, confusing the relationship between the wall and the drawing surface, between the space of the gallery and the cosmos of the drawings. I've been exploring the idea of limbo--the place of the resigned path, the place where the profound ceases to wield power... I'm not just layering sheets of paper, but lost, damaged figures who wander the void, unsatisfied, unfulfilled, resigned to the abstract, to the in-between. It's my job to traverse this space, find these figures, sketch their portraits, and bring their despair out to the edges, through the portals and out of the void.

Louis Schmidt was born and raised in rural Illinois. He earned a BFA in Studio Art (graduating Summa cum Laude) and a BA in Art History from the University of Colorado in Boulder in 2004. He has lived, learned, loved, made drawings and ridden his skateboard in London, Madrid and Krakow. Paris is next on the list. In the meantime, he is reading Walter Benjamin, riding a Harley and growing a beard.

bridgethevoid.blogspot.com

louismschmidt.com

Louis Schmidt

Artists