Stephen Schubert

Inhaling the scent of a water lily at the age of eight in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens was, I believe, the first time I experienced intoxication.  The combined beauty and overwhelming aroma imprinted in my mind forever.

Have you ever sat around a table of great, simple food and wine outdoors and felt transported?  Did you ever get lost in a soft-focus daydream, while traveling in a car, on a bus, in the air, on the ground…watching life slide by?  This is what I like to explore in my work.  Finding out where we find ourselves.

It made me wonder…what would a breath look like on a canvass?    I take a deep breath before every painting both to clear my head and create a space for what is about to be.  My process is mostly unconscious.  My work incorporates color fields, resin coating, words, old world textures, abstract forms and realism…sometimes altogether.

I also have a love of film, particularly foreign cinema.  I’ve been fortunate to attend many film festivals around the world, where I get as much stimulation and inspiration in watching vastly different perspectives on screen as I do in the cities and towns in which the festivals take place.

In my most recent painting entitled “Breathe,” I was really asking to open to a deeper part of myself.  As always, I pondered the notion of breath.  For centuries, we have had our breath taken away, steadied ourselves through our breath, and breathed new life into things.   Fortuitously, this piece found its way into the lobby of the headquarters of the American Lung Association in Washington, DC.

I invite you to consider your own experience of breath, which will perhaps lead to more space in our lives and more opportunity to express the life we might like to live.

Just breathe.

Stephen Schubert
schubertmodern.com

Stephen Schubert Gallery