Would-be warriors and teenagers alike, throughout history, have engaged in the same strong medicine; uninhibited dance. This is shapeshifting at its most fundamental level. It is the manifestation of an embodied and therefore wiser, more powerful self.
For his Platform exhibition, Marty Schnapf drew inspiration from a song by The Cramps called I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1980), skilfully capturing a mirage of movement. These shape-shifting bodies caught in transitory moments are saturated with vibrant colours, exuberance, and freedom. Engrossed in complete bliss, they hover in a liminal state of transformation.
“I was a teenage werewolf
Braces on my fangs
I was a teenage werewolf
And no one even said thanks”
Overview
Undefined by harsh contours, Schnapf’s fragmented subjects flicker between landscapes and human figures.
The artist explains, “My work starts from a very abstract space, then I draw over that. I find a figure and that gives me some structure to start clarifying the complexity of the work. Then I paint and draw and weave the two.” As such, this series exemplifies Schnapf’s perfected painterly fluidity, layering technique and stylised execution that results in elegant yet dynamic forms. The expressivity and gestural quality of the figures are reminiscent of the dance movements of choreographer Pina Bausch.
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Focused primarily on singular figures, these works depict limbs in a semi-abstract swirl of colour, oscillating in the rhythm with the song that inspired the whole series. Unfolding slowly before the viewer, these paintings allude to the dynamic interiority of individual experience.
Marty Schnapf
Beneath Suspicion
2022
111.76 x 91.44 cm
Marty Schnapf
Come on, come on
2022
152.4 x 121.92 cm
Marty Schnapf
Good Trouble
2022
111.76 x 91.44 cm
Marty Schnapf
Jet Boy (NY Dolls)
2022
111.76 x 91.44 cm
Marty Schnapf
Radio Room
2022
111.76 x 91.44 cm
Marty Schnapf
Tornado Alley
2022
111.76 x 91.44 cm
Marty Schnapf
Never did sleep
2022
152.4 x 121.92 cm
Schnapf depicts a narrative which could be viewed as autobiographical.
In these works, he portrays his own lavish parties that he threw in his twenties, bringing to the forefront intimate moments of unawareness and unselfconsciousness expressed only in the confines of a safe space. While the figures are bestowed with the confidence to be free, the viewer is left with the role of a voyeur, desperate to feel the melody-fuelled haze.
About the Artist
Marty Schnapf (b. 1977) is a Los Angeles-based visual artist, celebrated for his multidisciplinary practice spanning painting, performance, video, installation and sculpture.
He received his BFA from Wittenberg University in 1999 and was heavily influenced by his studies abroad in Cortona, Italy. He has exhibited extensively throughout the US and internationally, with recent solo exhibitions at Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles California 2022 and 2019; Wilding Cran Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2018; MaRS Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2016; The Property, Los Angeles, CA 2015; and Permanently Closed, Los Angeles, CA 2015. He has featured in numerous performance festivals and group exhibitions, including at: Soulangh Cultural Park, Tainan, Taiwan; Vooruit Arts Center, Ghent, Belgium; Kaaistudios, Brussels, Belgium; 3rd Ward, New York, USA; Ballhaus Ost, Berlin, Germany; Caranza 25 Mexico City, Mexico; and The Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, Oregon, USA. He is the recipient of numerous grants including a 2017 Rema Hort Mann Community Engagement Grant.
Chosen Charity
Chosen Charity
Natural Resources Defense Council
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) was founded in 1970 by a group of law students and attorneys at the forefront of the environmental movement. Today, with the help of 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe, the organisation continues to work to ensure the rights of all people to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities.
The reason I have chosen this charity is there is no bigger problem facing humanity right now than climate change. Climate change is affecting the people who are often least responsible for it – those are the people that are being hit first and the hardest.