About

Bio

     Amelia M. Schroeder is a multidisciplinary artist who works predominantly in oils, textiles, and words. After earning a BA in Studio Art with honors from Marietta College of Ohio, where large-scale abstract paintings centered around ecocide and our relationship to nature, and attending a Figure Drawing Marathon at New York Studio School, Schroeder has exhibited in local, national and international shows. Much of Schroeder’s early art explored definitions of self in relief to the complex, gorgeous, and traumatic Appalachia of childhood. Despite relocations around the country in adulthood, Schroeder was represented by Purple Moon Gallery (Charleston, WV) before moving to Wichita, then to land of the Tsalagi, Miccosukee Creek, and Uchee Peoples (Western NC). Since then, the gestalt of catharsis, good love, meta-musings, dreams of past lives and better futures, human condition, anachronisms, exploration of personal narratives amid high-control religion, mortality, sociology, and cultural commentary has driven both art and writing for a rich interdisciplinary practice. Schroeder’s chapbook, Hillbilly Pillory, is available from Firestorm Books; more work can be found or is forthcoming in Hood of Bone, Understory by Loblolly Press, Dark City Poets Anthology, The Dewdrop, and others. Visual art exists throughout private collections, may be perused at local venues and also at ameliaschroeder.blogspot.com.

 

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 oppressed ones 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