James Mielnicki Senior Portfolio 2010: Artist 3/28: David Schnell

Schnell's work hit me hard the instant I walk by the wall sized image hanging on the wall of the VMFA, it's simply impossible to miss. He has this ability to create a great deal of light source "movement" as if the unseen sun in the image is rising and setting over the course of the painting's creation. Implied lighting aside, his perspective line work is simply stunning, forcefully sending the viewers eye from one end of the image to another and back again, over and over. Finding this talented, recently budding artist has already made a tremendous impact on my own work in how I use color, create line, imply depth, et cetera.

Bio

"David Schnell usually employs elements of landscape in his paintings. Indeed, first-time viewers might be under the impression that they are looking at landscape paintings, but in reality they are witnessing Schnell's obsessive treatment of space - something he frequently intensifies by painting in large formats that seem to engulf the viewer. Equally striking is Schnell's compelling use of linear perspective and the vanishing point to create pictorial order. However, this order is often counteracted by the artist's almost subliminal desire for action. These conflicting elements of order and explosion give the paintings an extraordinary energy and dynamism that never leave the viewer's eye or mind at rest. The landscape in Schnell's works provides a framework against which he explores his thoughts, ideas and artistic concerns.

David Schnell was born in 1971 in Bergische Gladbach, Germany. He lives and works in Leipzig."

"Artnews.org: David Schnell at Parasol Unit London."Artnews.org. artnews.org, 09 Jul 2006. Web. 28 Mar 2011. <http://artnews.org/gallery.php?i=2323&exi=2603>.

Quotes

“Equally striking is Schnell's compelling use of linear perspective and the vanishing point to create pictorial order. However, this order is often counteracted by the artist's almost subliminal desire for action. These conflicting elements of order and disorder give the paintings an extraordinary energy and dynamism that never leave the viewer's eye or mind at rest.”

"Streifzuge: Paintings by David Schnell / e-flux." e-flux.com. e-flux, 18 Jun 2006. Web. 28 Mar 2011. <http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/3300>.

“A love for the tradition of great German Renaissance painting is added to a notion of a new pictorial space. These are elements that Schnell reprocesses in an extraordinary range of highly original compositions in which colour and forms lead towards a fabulous imagined world depicted at the borderline of abstraction”

Rovereto, Mart. "Contemporary Germany. To Paint is to Narrate. Tim Eitel, David Schnell, Matthias Weischer. -Mart." http://english.mart.trento.it/. N.p., 28 Jun 2008. Web. 28 Mar 2011. <http://english.mart.trento.it/intranet_newsletter.jsp?area=42&ID_LINK=59&page=92&IDCTX=2194>.