Inside Out: Lana Schuster

Inside Out: Lana Schuster

Exhibition on view from July 25 – September 17

Artist statement:

I am interested in so many things about painting. The paint for one. I love to scoop it up, squeeze it out, and mix it around, watch the colours develop, spread it around, see what happens, how the colours and forms look against each other. The brushes for another. I have my favourites. Mostly the ones that hold a lot of paint. The ‘Why paint?’ Because I am compelled to, I can’t not. The ‘How to paint?’ Now it’s getting really interesting. Because this is what it’s really all about. I try to stay open to new ideas, to the suggestions of my voice inside, my outside voice. It is all about trusting the process and being willing to paint authentically, to be part of something new.

The beginnings of my process may start with observing what’s around me. Or it could be a response with something going on internally that I may or may not be aware of. That can be as dramatic as the experience of losing a loved one or simply just wanting to spread some paint around. I’m often moved to paint after I’ve spent time outdoors. Sometimes I start with a plan for a landscape or a concrete image and then I get lost in the paint and process and something completely non-objective emerges. My intuition takes over, if I let it, if I trust it, if I allow myself.

Creating these works surprise me every time. What you see in them is an expression of an experience, a record of an experience in time, something in the past that has passed but truly lives on in the painting. What you see in them is  what you see in them – what is evoked or personally meaningful for you. I hope  that in looking at them, you will feel something, see something, perhaps even experience something that resonates with you.