WAITING ROOM
DAVID SCHELL | Conditional
June 5 - July 8, 2023
“How we shape a context helps to determine how something within it is perceived. All contexts are subject to change, so it’s only natural that perceptions follow suit.
My recent work is about how we recognize the unknown and how we navigate our way through it. I construct all of the supports that I paint on, striving for a handmade quality that embraces imperfections and nuanced contours. These panels act as intimate stages for the small dramas that take place on them: simple shapes and waxy colors trying to make sense of the world that they’ve found themselves in. At times the interior shapes suggest something recognizable, but often they are just reductive elements engaging with the irregular boundaries that contain them. The completed paintings, however, are always about how we make our way through this often mysterious world.” -DS
David Schell (he/him) is an artist working in Portland, Oregon. He received an MFA from American University and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Schell’s recent work is rooted in the idea that context, form and perception are intimately linked to one another. He is also the founder of The Semi-Finalist, a painting-centric blog that features interviews by Schell and columns by Benjamin Terrell.
Recent exhibitions include intimate, intimate and Temporary Fun at Augen Gallery in Portland, Oregon; Current Surroundings at The Dengerink Gallery, Washington State University (Vancouver); End of the Beginning in Queensland, Australia; Just Like This for a Little While at Oranj Studio in Portland, OR; and the 60th Chautauqua Annual Exhibit of Contemporary Art in Chautauqua, New York.