Jan-Luka Schmitz (*1992) was born in Düsseldorf. He studied fine arts from 2013 to 2019 in the painting class of Professor Andreas Schulze at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
Besides his solo shows with Artuner ("Embryonze", 2020, "Settle for Swaying", 2022) his work were shown e. g. in group shows in Parkhaus im Malkasten, Düsseldorf (2019), Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf (2020), Kunstmuseum Solingen (2021) and Palazzo Capris, Turin (2021).
Before his residency in Viersen, he received scholarships at St. Moritz Art Academy (2017) and dHCS-Stipendium, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen (2019-2021).
Discipline
painting
Moving people, objects and spaces are at the beginning of each image; more precisely their observation, which is first internalized and carried around as remembered scraps over a longer period of time. From various of these fragments, an idea or sketch is gradually collaged, in which ripens the aspiration for a painting. The restlessness therein tells of contradictions of the outer appearance facing the inner conflict: the spectacle that contrasts our inside. The appeal of color is the ability to envelop this contrast in serenity and balance.
Year of participation
2022
The time in Viersen is dedicated to a further fencing of the representational signs from the abstract and free treatment of color - to create a generous gap in between, which will allow the viewer to get to the center of the matter. This gap, with no facet of actual reality or the social to be traced, yet will offer a potential reconstruction that the viewer will go for.
Compare this phenomenon with an open border through which people diffuse in order to have a dynamic exchange. This process shows that the mixture of the distinct groups holds immense creative potential.