Jim Schutte

Understanding my deconstruction of sculpture, think of a man on a horse, in some park or roundabout, thrusting his sword forward. Sculpture has been artful in lots of ways, but has always carried the weight of physical depiction: representation honed from a mass of stone or wax cast into bronze. What interests me is its sense of gesture. Real physical gesture.

Painting, on the other hand, has been largely illusionistic, allowing much greater creative freedom, but it also carried the dead weight of representation. Modernism was breaking this down, but limited itself by staying inside the same old rules of the representational. What interests me is painting's freedom. It is visual fantasy. Its artfulness isn't limited by the physical.

By combining just these two things: mass-less, pure physical gesture from sculpture with the visual freedom of picture making, what do you end up with? The potential for a completely abstract, coherent visual language: color that flies by itself in midair, and form that floats in pure gesture.

1988 Masters degree in Fine Arts from The School of Visual Arts, NYC.

1986 Bachelor of Science degree from Portland State University under Mel Katz. Portland, OR.

Current exhibition:

“Visual Fantasy: Deconstruction of Sculpture”.

Solo show.

February 22 - May 18, 2025

50-14 Skillman Ave., Queens, NY until May 18.

Curated by Raluca Anchidin