About

Bio

     Amelia Marie Schroeder was born in the hills of Southern Ohio. Schroeder works predominantly in oils and acrylics, but also takes detours into photography, charcoal and textiles. She received her BA in Studio Art, Cum Laude, with a painting concentration from Marietta College of Ohio and also attended a Figure Drawing Marathon at New York Studio School.  Among other accolades, The Design Green Project International named Schroeder winner of their art category in 2008, and she attended Blueberry View Artist Residency in 2011 in Riverside, MI. Despite moves around the country, she has exhibited in national and international shows, and was represented by Purple Moon Gallery of Charleston, WV before moving to Wichita in 2015 then to NC in 2017. Her work can currently be seen at Trailhead in Black Mountain, NC. 

    Schroeder is also an active member of the Dark City Poets Society. Her writing can be found in the group's 2023 Anthology.

Statement

I firmly believe that we are directly impacted and influenced by our surroundings, even without our conscious awareness. So, why add more ugliness to the world? Even with this in mind when I paint, it’s a constant dance and battle between creating a beautiful piece, and using my experiences, which aren’t always pretty. I want to give up art altogether but I can’t seem to; it’s like some chronic disease that has afflicted me since the age of three. My inspiration comes from nature and emotion, and as much as I try to be a hard ass, I have to paint because my heart is constantly breaking. It feels sometimes as though the sorrow of Mother Earth and all her women are on my shoulders.

To this end, my paintings started out in undergrad as a statement against what humans are doing to the planet. “Look at these pretty colors and cells and feel bad about what you’re doing and change things.” But I’m not sure that there’s a better advocate for the beauty of nature than nature herself. The absurdity of using lumber-farm pine, GMO cotton canvas and oil paints to convey all this wasn’t lost on me. I felt like a fraud. It’s crazy that I might commune with some paint on a flat surface, constantly producing more non-utilitarian objects, and hope to change the world that way. So now I mostly salvage canvases and reuse scrap wood panels and have given up on fancy artist statements that tell people what to feel about what I do. If you can pause long enough to have an experience with my work, I just hope that it’s your own, and that it brings deep and full appreciation of the moment because that’s what I gain from creating it.

Contact me at...ameliaschroeder [at] yahoo [dot] com