Dear readers,
We at the Schneider Museum of Art are excited to announce that Inside the Museum is back from its Summer hiatus! We appreciate your patience and hope to have another wonderful year of art exploration and education. We hope to provide more insight, background, and context for the art that comes through our building and hope it helps you engage in new ways. Join us on Thursday, October 5th from 5 to 7 pm for the opening reception of our fall exhibition, Intuitive Nature: Geometric Roots & Organic Foundations, and read a little bit about the show with this week’s newsletter! Articles will continue to come out weekly, with new artists featured in each issue. We look forward to seeing you at the Schneider Museum of Art!
-Rowan

Geometric Art

More commonly referred to as geometric abstract art, this style is marked by its use of geometric forms, linework, and colors that contrast those found in realistic art. Famous artists such as Picasso and other artists of the Cubism movement utilized geometric art to create works that opposed the idea that art had to be solely representational and realistic in order to “mean” something. Inspired by art movements like impressionism, symbolism, and expressionism, many artists that follow this tradition take a more emotional and spiritual approach to their work. These pieces tend to focus more on what it feels like rather than what it looks like. In our exhibition Intuitive Nature: Geometric Roots & Organic Foundations, geometric shapes sit at the base of innovation. Through new lenses and artists that push the envelope, geometric art serves as a building block for the experimental and lively works on display. Visit the Schneider Museum of Art today to feel the atmosphere for yourself, and click the link below to learn more about the history of geometric art.
https://theartling.com/en/artzine/collecting-geometric-art-guide/

Shane McAdams

Artist and writer Shane McAdams uses topography as a blueprint for his work. Enamored by natural formations and visual timelines, McAdams’s art captures the slow, ever changing beauty of the landscape against man’s desire for instant gratification. Since 2018, he’s been running a space out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin with fellow artist Keith Nelson called Real Tinsel Gallery. The gallery shows contemporary, socially relevant pieces with the goal of making art more accessible. As a writer, McAdams’s work can be found in publications such as The Brooklyn Rail, The Daily Beast, and The Shepherd Express. With both an eye for creation and critique, McAdams was the perfect person to write the essay for our fall exhibition, Intuitive Nature: Geometric Roots & Organic Foundations. His knowledge and appreciation of the land as both content and material adds another layer to ponder while interacting with the art. Read his essay down below, and visit the Schneider Museum of Art to connect back to our roots of simplicity.

https://sma.sou.edu/exhibitions/intuitive-nature-geometric-roots-organic-foundations/

Sustainability

One man’s trash can be another man’s treasure, or art supply. Found objects in art serve both an aesthetic and political purpose. As attention and anxiety around the climate crisis grows, many artists have started to give new life to the discarded items in their communities through sculpture. Some artists, such as Gregory Dellis, put the plastics front and center, asking viewers to consider their impact on the environment and the finite nature of the material. Others, like Courtney Puckett, use recycled textiles and mixed media to create sculptures full of curiosity and flow. While the recycled textiles aren’t the main visual draw of Puckett’s work, the underlying message of conservation, repurposing, and mindful consumption come into play when engaging with her work. Puckett is one of eight artists that can be found in the Schneider Museum of Art’s fall exhibition Intuitive Nature: Geometric Roots & Organic Foundations. 

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Jeannie Taylor