The skin of the women in Schuldt’s paintings has a blue, icy sheen, allowing the warm beige of each fleshy body to ascend into the foreground. Flexible, lazy figures bend and squat with a dancer-like ease, draping themselves inside of exterior horizons, interior dreamscapes and abstract textiles. The women are tall and strong, often engaged in confrontational body language or preoccupied with violent, passionate altercations with one another. The persistent flowery plants are thick like tree trunks.
The painter’s oil canvas “Freistunde” transitions between states as three figures emerge from a broken fence of vines, both triumphant and repressed. Their playful aura and youthful attire completely negate their ripe, developed bodies. Rarely do we see their eyes, and the feet are tiny in a foot-bound Barbie shoe kind of way. The paintings are actually disturbing enough on their own before even knowing their titles, one of which includes “Loving you is killing me”. Torment, lust, rage and pleasure are all present.
Schuldt is technically mature for her age and has various pictoral styles depending on the medium, be it painting, drawing or print. Her paintings reflect a classic Modernist training and have no shortage of confident lines and absolutely unapologetic gestures.
The Moscow-born, Leipzig-based artist is no stranger to Berlin, currently in town by way of Eigen+Art’s Take Five series of five exhibitions by five young artists for five weeks. Running for just a few days, her showcase is not to be missed.
Kristina Schuldt — Take Five Feb 18-22 | Gallery Eigen+Art, Auguststr. 26, Mitte, U-Bhf Rosenthaler Platz, Tue-Sat 11-18
Originally published in issue #124, February 2014.