KATY SCHIMERT
Working across a variety of media, including drawing, sculpture, and film, Katy Schimert uses fragments of personal experience as her conceptual impetus; the intersection of the fine and decorative arts is a formal point of departure for the artist. Densely layered and vaguely topographical, her drawings suggest sequences of cosmic or otherworldly events populated by ethereal human figures. In her intricate three-dimensional works, human and familiar forms serve as physical containers for encoded thoughts and symbols. Schimert’s dynamic surfaces, which continue to unfold after prolonged viewing, are essentially volumetric drawings (she often draws and paints on the exteriors of the forms). Fully manipulating and reinventing each surface, she creates what she describes as “space for illusion.” The results of this investigation are not only visually compelling, but formally succinct – this allows her works in various media to meld together as many pieces of a broad, ongoing visual essay.
Born in 1963 in Grand Island, New York, Schimert received her M.F.A. from Yale University in 1989.
Schimert's work has been exhibited in significant solo and group shows internationally since the early 1990s. Venues include the University Museum of Contemporary Art, UMASS Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts (2014); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York (both 2010); Pinakothek der Moderne und Nationaltheater, Munich (2007); Landesgalerie am Oberösterreichischen Landesmuseum, Linz, Austria (2002); Tate Gallery, London (1999); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California (solo, 1999); The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (solo, 1998); amongst others.
Work by the artist is represented in prominent private and public collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Wanås Foundation, Knislinge, Sweden; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The artist lives and works in New York.
Source: David Zwirner Galleries
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