trading maps for the stars

September 15–October 15, 2012
Bleicher La Brea Gallery
Los Angeles

VIEW CATALOG

from the exhibition announcement:

Since her shift into abstraction, Schwartz’s work has been going through a rapid evolution in form, all the while staying true to her psychoanalytic process. Schwartz has been pushing paint techniques into exciting territory and is at the forefront of psychological exploration in painting. Since her Hollow Sea exhibit in 2011 she has received critical attention and nationwide press; one highlight is her inclusion in New American Paintings. The landscaped deconstructions of the self, Schwartz explored in The Hollow Sea, have undergone further transformation with an investigation into the figure while still moving towards pure abstraction.

Schwartz cites Andre Aciman’s 2008 essay Intimacy as a source of inspiration for her current body of work:

"What... touches us is the radiance we've projected on things, not the things themselves- the envelope, not the letter, the wrapping, not the gift... These intimations travel from the objects and beings around us and eventually reach our senses. But the opposite is also true: we radiate films of what we have within us and project them on everything we see—which is how we become aware of the world and, ultimately, why we come to love it. Without these films, these fictions, which are both our alibis and the archive of our innermost life, we have no way to connect to or touch anything."