erika lawlor schmidt

Schmidt received her Bachelor and Master of Fine Art from the University of South Florida in Tampa.  She also did post-baccalaureate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has won awards for her multi-media theatre productions at dance festivals in Prague, Czech Republic; Cercena, Italy; and Barcelona, Spain.  Her prints and collages have been exhibited at the Drawing Center and the Lincoln Center in New York and The High Museum in Atlanta.  She was recently featured in the 2010 Northeast edition of New American Paintings.

Schmidt is a multifaceted artist.  She fully embraces and incorporates varying forms of creative expression in her life and in her art.  Dance, poetry, theatre, music, collage, painting, and drawing all intertwine to form a universe of enlightenment.  Schmidt is a choreographer, a director, and a conductor of sorts, pulling contrasting elements together in a synchronized, symbiotic whole.

Schmidt’s work begins by collecting intriguing images from magazines, books, maps, and other print material.  Much of the imagery has a vintage, nostalgic, or historic sense.  From her large archive she begins to choreograph a dance of images, juxtaposing, editing, shaping, and rotating them based on the developing story.

Eastern philosophy is of great influence in Schmidt’s artistic approach.  She balances motion with stillness, object with void, color with pattern, and boldness and richness with delicacy and lightness.  She weaves places, people, and events together realizing a new strength in union. They are yesterday speaking to tomorrow.  They are the inanimate relating to the animate.  They are incongruity reconciling with commonality. All elements of the work combine to stoke the imagination. One feels the motion, the seeming randomness, and then the sudden flush of symbolism and meaning. One becomes enraptured with discovery and energized with possibility and glee reigns supreme.

commissioned & site specific works are available from each artist; please call the gallery for details.

education

University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida
School of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Instituto de Arte San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico

solo exhibitions

2010    Trip the Light Fantastic, eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2008    Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, Vermont
2005    Melvin Gallery, Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida
2003    Polk State College, Winter Haven, Florida
2002    Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art, Sarasota, Florida
2001    Mira Mar Gallery, Sarasota, Florida
1997    Center Gallery, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida

group exhibitions

2010    Art Hamptons, with eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2010    Art Chicago, with eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2010    Poet’s and Writer’s Conference, Manchester, Vermont
2010    Edgewater Gallery, Middlebury, Vermont
2009    Baymoro Fine Art, Duxbury, Massachusetts
2007    Carving Center and Sculpture Studio, West Rutland, Vermont
2006    Wellfleet Fine Art Collection, Newton Center, Massachusetts
2005    Playpen, Drawing Center, New York, New York
2004    Wish You Were Here, Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center, New York, New York
2001    National Invitational, Brad Cooper Gallery, Tampa, Florida
2000    National Invitational, Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida
1999    Contemporary Printwork, Sarasota Center for the Arts, Sarasota, Florida
1998    Florida Printmakers, Lee County Alliance for the Arts, Fort Myers, Florida
1998    Works on Paper, University of West Florida, Pensacola, Florida
1998    Emerging Artist Invitational, Gasparilla Festival of the Arts, Tampa, Florida
1997    Printmakers National Juried Show, University of Tampa, Tampa, Florida

honors and awards

2010    New American Paintings, Northeast Catalogue #86
2007    Vermont Studio Center, Artist Residency and Scholarship
2006    International Performance Festival, Barcelona, Spain
2003    Concorso Internazionale de Danza, Cecena, Italy
2003    San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Guest Artist
2002    Guest Artist, Southern Graphics Council Conference, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida
1999    Prague Festival, Prague, Czech Republic
1977    Guest Artist, Southern Graphics Council Conference Graphic Studio, Tampa, Florida