Morgan Lehman Gallery is pleased to present, UNREST, a solo exhibition of new works by Andrew Schoultz. This is the artist's third show with Morgan Lehman Gallery.
Andrew Schoultz’s UNREST stems from the artist’s continuing interest in issues of global turmoil and societal angst. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Japanese Earthquakes and the BP oil spill all fuel this new body of work. Rather than depict literal narratives of these events, Schoultz captures their essence using an ever-expanding arsenal of pictorial symbols. Billowing clouds of smoke create an “all-over” surface reminiscent of abstract expressionism and Op-art. These stylized clouds both unify the composition and veil the reality of the horrors depicted in the background. The obscuring impact that these clouds has on the images they hide may indicate the frustration Schoultz has with the partisan and misleading journalism the press has in disseminating information to the public. Other oft-repeated symbols include crumbling and exploding brick structures and monuments, the rearing horse, the all-seeing Masonic eye, and a lit candle set against green, yellow and red camouflaged backgrounds. The lit candle – a universal sign of hope and optimism-suggests that even in uncertain times the human spirit is nothing if not optimistic. These recurring symbols function as visual cues for a loose narrative the artist has constructed through previous bodies of work. Out of this narrative, Schoultz forms an historical construct that melds contemporary calamitous events with the broad sweep of Western civilization.
Works in the show include “Melting Man (French)”, 2011, a mixed media work on paper, whose subject was taken from an iconic 1941 Associated Press war photograph of a Frenchman crying. This photo was originally taken as the flags of defeated French regiments were carried down to the docks of Marseille to be sent to Algeria after the German occupation of WWII. In Schoultz's appropriation of that image, he has painted thick pink neon streams pouring from the man’s brow as wooden arrows and tear-dropped eyes encircle his head. Additionally, the artist has created a life size sculptural installation of a battle-scene scenario specifically for this exhibition. The large scale work includes a hand-painted “brick” wall that has met the blast of artillery cannon.
Andrew Schoultz has exhibited in numerous museum and gallery exhibitions in international and national venues, including the 10th Havana Biennial, Havana, Cuba; MAMA, Rotterdam, the Netherlands; European Kunsthalle and Linn Luhn, Cologne, Germany; the Torrance Art Museum; and the House of Campari, Los Angeles, CA, among many others, and will be featured in an upcoming show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He was the winner of the Campari Art Award in 2009. His work has been featured in Playboy, Whitewall, The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Artforum.com, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Juxtapoz, Arrow, Alarm, SF Weekly, The San Francisco Chronicle, and several other publications. His work is in the permanent collections of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Palm Springs Museum of Art, Palm Springs, CA; and The Progressive Art Collection, Mayfield Village, OH. His street murals can be found in San Francisco and Indonesia. The artist lives and works in San Francisco.
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