"the creatures in Schmitt’s pictorial world are always highly idiosyncratic beings from an in between realm, located beyond reality."
The Contemporary Art Modern Project, (The CAMP Gallery), a Miami based gallery and art platform, is pleased to announce the opening of its second gallery space in Westport, Connecticut, launching with the works of German artist Dominik Schmitt.
Opening late September 2021, the gallery will present a program of contemporary art works by international and local artists all the while remaining true to our interest in reactionary art. With regards to our premiere exhibition and the works of Dominik Schmitt, the artist is known for his often satirical representations of the world that both surrounds and consumes - internally and externally. Often drawing from both memory and culture the artist creates scenarios often mixing different moments in his own life making him a storyteller reminiscent of those of the Magic Realism movement in Germany of the 1920’s, with the goal of presenting a new understanding of Realism showing an ever-changing social experience, all the while incorporating the internal of emotion, magic and wonder.
Born in 1983, Dominik Schmitt is a painter born to Neustadt, Germany. Every young artist today faces great challenges in view of the past centuries of art and art history and the overwhelming diversity and possibilities found on the art market. How can I find my own way in this “jungle,” assert myself as an artist, and develop a characteristic and recognizable “handwriting”? Dominik Schmitt creates pictures that are idiosyncratic in the best sense of the word, that catch the eye, that linger in the memory. Pictures that the viewer cannot possibly grasp at first glance due to their complexity and richness of detail. Should he nonetheless try to do so, he will be easily deceived. First of all, there is the dark coloration with a rich spectrum of broken black, gray, and earth tones, resulting in an unsettling and slightly melancholic basic mood. In terms of motifs, Schmitt’s paintings confront us with glimpses into the inner workings of human and animal life. Although the figurative dominates, the creatures in Schmitt’s pictorial world are always highly idiosyncratic beings from an in between realm, located beyond reality. Again and again we encounter amalgams of human and animal, often with limbs deformed or out of proportion. They sometimes seem to almost jump out of the picture – possessing a terrible beauty and fascination in their uniqueness, in their otherness. One might feel a bit transported to the world of figures found on the capitals and among the gargoyles of Romanesque and Gothic churches, or in the depictions of hell of a Hieronymus Bosch or Pieter Breughel – a playful approach to the unfathomable and the frightening.
