Andrew Schoultz “Full Circle”

As the title suggests, Full Circle, provides Schoultz the opportunity to re-examine his diverse visual lexicon, including motifs and symbols that originate from his earliest artistic endeavors, some reaching as far back as childhood. These personal emblems take on new roles in the context of Schoultz’s fine art practice. Symbols such as castles, all-seeing eyes, and serpents, together explore cyclical patterns and power structures in history. Recalling themes of war, natural disasters and globalization, the works combine his icons with his visual style characterized by densely layered compositions and expressive line work. As is the case with the majority of Schoultz’s oeuvre, the works here evoke narrative and inspire conversation. The artist points to his themes, though allows the viewer to reach his or her own conclusions.

For this current body of work, Schoultz redirects his focus to explore formal elements of painting such as composition, depth, and color. One of the most evident aspects we see here is the artist’s intense use of gradient color in circular compositions. Each band of color, emanating from a shared point, appears to extend infinitely beyond the canvas, recalling radio waves. Schoultz modernizes the familiar 1928 RKO Radio Pictures icon, which shows a radio tower at the top of the world with clear, circular bands of broadcast waves. Applying this iconic image to the present, Schoultz replaces the tower with an eye, as these new bands take on a different role in our world that is saturated with digital information and surveillance. Schoultz creates a sense of depth by applying a coat of resin between layers of paint, juxtaposing the expressive hand-painted concentric circles with the sleek surface of the resin. The artist’s application of color here, is both symbolic and formal, as the gradients change from dark to light, while expanding the artist’s palette. Breaking away from his own traditions, the artist here has given himself the freedom to experiment with bright neons and striking color combinations, exploring new directions and possibilities for his practice.

Words and images via Joshua Liner Gallery