Virtual Studio Visit: Diana Schmertz

Join Pelham Art Center for a virtual studio visit with Diana Schmertz, exhibiting artist in Domestic Brutes.

“I am interested in the systems people create in order to organize what they perceive in the world around them. These systems can be based in science, religion, psychology, philosophy or politics. No matter how cerebral a system or idea may appear, it is always experienced through our physical senses. In order to communicate balance between reason and the senses I paint imagery of the body expressing emotional understanding juxtaposed with systems of verbal and/or mathematical reasoning.

In my recent work I laser cut watercolor paintings transforming the paper into an object that is made out of words. By using two strongly contrasting techniques, handmade and machine made, the physical work reinforces the conceptual idea that sensory/emotive understanding is fundamentally connected with analytical logic. The final art pieces are objective and intuitive, mechanical and intimate. Whether the viewer chooses to focus on the “rationality” in the text or the “sensory” in the bodies each remains equally significant within the physical object itself.”