The Art of Heidi Schmitz

On Friday March 1, 2013 the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center presents a solo exhibition by German artist Heidi Schmitz, showing her acrylic and watercolor paintings.

In her hometown, Munich, Heidi Schmitz is a highly reputed member of the arts community and has impressed with many solo exhibitions as for example in 2009 and 2012 in the Orangerie, an old green house that has been turned into a famous exhibition hall in the English Garden in the center of Munich.

Heidi`s painting history goes back to the early eighties when she started with paintings on silk and porcelain. She has studied with various European artists, such as Bernhard Vogel, Gesine Frölich and Alexander Jeanmaire in Germany, Austria, Italy and the US.

Heidi works in a variety of media, from watercolors to acrylics  to mixed media. In the mid eighties Heidi did her first watercolor paintings, which were very realistic and detailed. Now her paintings go far beyond classical aquarelles, with different varnishes and glazes. Often she uses water color pens and ink. She says: “ watercolor paintings are for me an excellent means to express and portray atmospheres and emotions”. Thus, her aquarelles transport feelings and impressions rather than a photographic reproduction of an object. In order to achieve these effects she sprinkles and splashes with colors; she blurs things while highlighting others. Her watercolors show European landscapes, cityscapes, still lives.

In the year 2000 Heidi Schmitz found a new passion in acrylic painting. “The magic of abstract painting is to work with many different techniques and materials (e.g. coffee, tar or wax…). My ambition is to combine and unify colors and forms in one painting in order to stress the tension and fascination of the painting.” Several layers of materials and forms provide the paintings with an extraordinary depth and expressive power. Each painting has its own center of gravity that is counterbalanced by lighter colors or forms. In the last 2 years Heidi has further enlarged the versatility of her art by painting on acrylic glass and dibond plates (the material commonly used for traffic signs).

Heidi teaches art (acrylic and watercolor painting) in her studio in Munich as well as at the Peoples University of Munich. She also offers a lease program for her paintings under special circumstances.