Childlike doll made out of folded dollar bills, roaches and drug bags; a butterfly resting atop cigarette butts shaped into flowers; and a rose stem sitting inside a crushed fizzy drinks can – Aurel Schmidt’s illustrations, the focus of her latest
A childlike doll made out of folded dollar bills, roaches and drug bags; a butterfly resting atop cigarette butts shaped into flowers; and a rose stem sitting inside a crushed fizzy drinks can – Aurel Schmidt’s illustrations, the focus of her latest book Reveries of a Lost Life Mask, are full of juxtapositions and contradictions. Rendered in pencil and executed with a painstaking attention to detail they run alongside the words of American poet Franz Wright. “I tried to choose the poems that made me feel the most personally and also worked with the feeling of what I saw the book as,” Schmidt explains.
Renowned for her intricately hand-drawn images that challenge conventions of beauty and are intertwined with autobiographical elements, Vancouver-born, New York-based Schmidt has exhibited worldwide – from Moscow to Milan to Manhattan. Heralded by critics, the 28-year-old self-taught artist has been described as the little sister of the rebellious downtown art scene, fathered by the likes of photographer Ryan McGinley, artists Dash Snow and Dan Colen. After her 2009 Deitch Projects and OHWOW release Maneater, we speak to Schmidt about Reveries of a Lost Life Mask published by Mörel Books later this month and take a preview of the book’s illustrations along with some exclusive unpublished images.
How did this book, Reveries of a Lost Mask, and the collaboration with Franz Wright come about?
I knew I wanted to make a book with poetry in it, but I didn't know what it would be like – Franz Wright is a poet who's work I really admire and really touches me. I contacted him, and was incredibly fortunate that he wanted to do the project. He let me to choose poems from his published and even unpublished work to go in the book. The way it turned out is really special to me and I am very thankful to Franz Wright for making it possible.
How would you describe the book to someone who hadn’t seen it?
Caring.
Your work is full of juxtapositions – what informs your subject matter?
The work in this book for me is a visual expression of my own struggles with temptation, nature, health and love: flowers made of cigarettes or drug voodoo dolls that are scary but also sweet and full of hope are that for me. Trying to do right but screwing up then trying again and trying to love yourself in the process. In a way it is a self help book for myself – something to show the inner struggle and therapeutic quality of the work for me.
Can you describe your process and the mediums you work with and why?
I usually get an image or feeling for something and then start assembling the parts, looking at it and thinking about how it makes me feel as I move forward and then work intuitively as I go. For materials, I like to use things that are part of my world as much as possible: my husbands ring or type of cigarettes, my own hair or house keys or a sentimental object that has a lot of meaning for me. One of the images in the book is a drawing of a Pilsner Old Stock beer can with flowers in it, It is titled: Count the Crows – it was the beer my dad drank while I was growing up. When I was a little kid he would tell me to “count the crows” on the can to keep me busy. I like making the work personal, it becomes like art therapy and I am able to work through emotional and psychological issues through it.
The book presents a beautiful duality between words and image – does poetry inspire you?
All creative mediums inspire me, and nearly everything else as well. I think more then anything else I find people inspiring, my husband, my friends and my family especially. The emotional investment in them and their ability to hurt and to heal me. Their beauty and strangeness and the things they're into, how they move and talk, what kind of food they like to eat or what kind of music they listen to or how they dress and think and what they care about. I love them so much that it makes everything else possible.
Aurel Schmidt, Reveries of a Lost Life Mask published by Mörel Books is out end of November.
Text by Lucia Davies
