Ursula Schneider — Biography



 

 Artist Statement June 2007 Ursula Schneider began drawing the landscape in Petaluma, CA, in 1978, depicting the local oak trees and fields with oil and soft pastels. A series of drawings were made at night in the moonlight. Working in the dark helped Schneider to eliminate details from the subject matter and instead focus on the forms, the main aspects of the subject, and her responses to it. She traveled to Iceland to draw. There she became interested in geology and the landscape devoid of human alteration: the movement in the earth, the forming and the erosion, the weather, the water, and the vegetation. On three visits to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, Schneider completed a series of pastel drawings and paintings representing the free-flowing forms of the rivers and the vastness of the mountain ranges. In 2000, she traveled to the Australian Northern Territories, which inspired the paintings in this exhibition.

Schneider’s paintings begin by drawing on site. She selects an elevated place in the landscape so that she has a wide view of a river or mountain range. For three hours, she studies and draws the form and movement of the nature in front of her. In the changing landscape, there will be a moment when an important dynamic reveals itself. This becomes the artist’s memory, which will be the guiding force in her paintings. Schneider also brings back physical fragments from her travels. The six Wood Studies in this exhibit are based on these objects.