Cameron Schmitz is an abstract painter who has a background in landscape and figurative painting. Her education includes a Masters of Fine Arts in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Bachelors of Fine Arts in Painting & Drawing from the University of New Hampshire, and studies in Art and Art History at Studio Arts Centers International in Florence, Italy. After growing up in Greenwich, CT and living in various areas of New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont, Schmitz eventually made her way to Western Massachusetts where she now resides with her husband and five children and maintains her full-time studio in Greenfield, MA.
Schmitz’s work has been featured at institutions that include Kyoto Seika University, Emory University, Fitchburg Art Museum, Northern Arizona University Art Museum, Green Mountain College, and The National Arts Club in New York, NY. Her work is included in national and international permanent collections that include New York-Presbyterian Hospitals, UVM Medical Center, Lahey Medical Centers, Wells Fargo and Almoosa Specialist Hospital in Saudi Arabia. Notable recent press includes spotlight features in Fresh Paint Magazine and featured guest on a two-part series on the popular podcast, Savvy Painter.
Statement
I use mark-making to express the constantly moving, changing, and morphing of life and nature, leaving observers certain that they are witnessing merely a fleeting moment in time. I am fascinated by the imagery that emerges from the physical and emotive act of painting itself—dashes of paint, gestural strokes, and rhythmic painterly marks are representative of human touch, personal exchange, energy, and the shifting of time.
Painting is a metaphor for my perception of life, inspired by the tender relationships in my life, and rooted in notions of touch, love, and wonder that I experience as a woman, mother, and humble observer of the world.
My pathway into abstraction stems from my background in both landscape and figurative painting—I remain fascinated by gesture and the human aspects of nature, such as the way tree branches appear to reach out to each other, as if yearning to touch and connect. I have found that being a parent has heightened my senses and my desire to move beyond literal forms and clarified my artistic motivation to express joy, wonder, and a contented unknowing about life, which is messy and intense but always potent with exceptional beauty. It is this uncertainty I embrace while painting intuitively and abstractly because it allows me to relinquish control and give way for the painting to become a deeper poetic dialogue between me, the material, and its viewers.
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