In Topography of Quiet, the internationally renowned artist Bastienne Schmidt explores through painting, drawing, the subtle interaction between nature and imagination. Inspired by natural patterns and typologies that she discovered on her travels in Egypt, Vietnam, Japan, Burma, and Greece, she traces with pencil, and paintbrush the impact that our environment has on our imagination - and vice versa. Intricate paintings and drawings inspired by Asian scroll drawings stand side by side with abstracted photographic compositions; together the images reveal the rhythms and patterns that shape the physical and psychological space around us. Bastienne Schmidt combines the notion of traveling in actuality and metaphorically, searching for and documenting divisions of space, markings and mappings as a reflection of a search for identity of place.
Bastienne Schmidt is a German-American multi-media artist, whose formative years were spent in Greece and Italy. The artist has had numerous solo exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including the International Center for Photography, New York, NY. Five monographs of her photography have been published (Vivir la Muerte, American Dreams, Shadowhome, Home Stills, and Topography of Quiet). Her work is in private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England. This is her second show at Kenise Barnes Fine Art.