Cameron Schmitz is an artist’s artist.
She’s also the curator of a new exhibition about to be mounted at The Drawing Room Art Gallery in Greenwich, Conn.
Called Inspection: The Poetics of Space, it will feature the work of David Mitchell, Christopher Gallego, Alyssa Dennis, and Tollef Rundquist. The theme of the show is architectural, but its overall impact is yet to be seen.
That’s because of Schmitz’s reliance on the inspirational as she hangs her shows.
“It’s not until that moment that something happens and changes and I read the work differently than before,” she says.
She selects enough pieces from each artist to gain insight into their aesthetics and sensibilities. None are religious, she says, but all are spiritual
“There’s the soft, glowing light of David Mitchell’s rectangular shapes, framing and protecting the illumination of beautiful diffused light,” she says. “He doesn’t suggest the spiritual but that’s what I read.”
Then there are Dennis’s architectural renderings – composites that are both ethereal and transient.
“She describes them as larger biological systems that transform and change over time,” she says. “They open spaces up for natural organic materials and animals, delineating structures and walls in a survival of humanity and sustainability.”
Gallego’s meticulous paintings, on the other hand, are depictions of everyday interiors, opened up for new kinds of interpretation.
“They’re intentional in the act of looking and of visual perceptions,” she says. “Something about his work is a rendition of space and objects with light – he makes you believe inanimate objects possess a soul or spirit.”
And Rundquist’s work, abstract and representational, changes upon close inspection.
“It dissolves into shapes and marks that become less about the thing you’re looking at and more about his experience in that space,” she says. “He’s provoking enough for the viewer to bite onto. allowing our minds to work and fill in the gaps – we may even feel like we’ve been there before.”
They may be different kinds of artists, working in different media and on different subject matter, but Schmitz sees common a common thread.
“They’re about interior spaces and something meaningful going on inside of structures embodying memories or experiences,” she says.”Each artist comments on this.”
The exhibition opens on Jan. 31.
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