GALERIE THOMAS SCHULTE

Iris SCHOMAKER PRESS RELEASE

2006 2004

2006

Recent Paintings
17 November 2006 - 13 January 2007

With an opening reception on 17 November from 7 to 9pm, Galerie Thomas Schulte is pleased to begin its second individual exhibition of the work of the painter Iris Schomaker.

Iris Schomaker (born 1973) lives and works in Berlin. For a number of years, she has solely concentrated on paintings done on paper. The subjects of her works are landscapes and lone, usually resting figures, almost always painted in very large formats. Schomaker's palette is quiet, and diverges little in its pastel hues from black, white, and grey tones. This lends her paintings a drawing-like aspect, which is emphasized still further by the remaining traces of the working process, sketches that shimmer through, and visible overpainting .
The process of capturing the figure and the discovery of the precise painterly composition seems just as much both the object and subject of these paintings as the motif and its atmospheric and physical qualities. All the same, the emphasis on one or the other differs depending on the series, motif, and goal of expression.
The paintings shown at Galerie Thomas Schulte in this exhibition all show the same androgynous figure in a strict, sketch-like style.
The multiple traces of the painting process clearly exhibit the gradual approach to the ideal distribution of what is depicted on the visual surface. In so doing, a unique spatial dynamic emerges, disturbing the beholder, who automatically feels compelled to find the genuine line. Schomaker thus displaces the engagement with the sketch on a level of representation that depicts the process itself, and presents it to the beholder. This lacking fixation becomes a forming and dynamic force in the act of reception.