I make art about transformation, and I build infrastructure for it.

My practice sits at the intersection of personal healing and collective liberation—using my own body, history, and experience as raw material while creating spaces for others to do the same work. I'm a conceptualist and social practice artist investigating how we construct identity, process trauma, and challenge systems designed to keep us small.

The methodology: destruction as creation, vulnerability as organizing tool, community care as radical practice.
For over a decade, I've been cutting things up—paintings, photographs, 52 years of personal archives. Shredding love letters and diet plans, slicing through work I made twenty-five years ago, buzzing off my hair and preserving it in jars. This cutting practice started as compulsive response to kidney cancer, eating disorder recovery, being a fat woman in a culture that profits from shame. Each cut makes space—literally, physically—for transformation.

But the cutting is just one part. The real work happens in relationship.

Perceive Me is my decade-long investigation into the gap between self-perception and how others see us. I've posed nude for 100+ artists, but it's not performance—it's methodology. Now I'm opening that transformative practice to others through Community Nude Portrait Sessions, because vulnerable collaborative art-making creates the conditions for collective healing.

I create large-scale installations from shredded history—body-sized wall sculptures measuring exactly 5'3" x 26" (my height, my width) assembled on nail grids with wire keyrings. Nothing's fixed. Everything can be reconfigured. Impermanence isn't a problem to solve; it's how identity actually works.

The infrastructure-building: I don't just make art about community—I build the systems that allow artists to thrive.

I founded Shoebox Arts in 2014 as comprehensive support network providing mentorship, resources, and community for artists navigating an art world that wasn't built for us. In 2016, I launched Art and Cake, a contemporary LA art magazine covering artists and spaces the mainstream ignores. Through my nonprofit January Arts, we've published 1,800+ articles amplifying voices that deserve attention.

I organize walking meetings for artists who need accountability. I run critique groups where everyone's voice matters equally. I connect people—introducing artists to curators, writers to galleries, collaborators to each other. Every introduction is a small social sculpture. The conversations in parking lots after openings? That's the artwork.

The philosophy: Money should flow through the art ecosystem, not accumulate. Healing happens in relationship, not isolation. Accessibility isn't an accommodation—it's how we build better systems from the start. Infrastructure is institutional critique. When institutions fail artists, we build alternatives.

I work across painting, photography, installation, performance, and social practice. My collaborative practice includes partnerships with 100+ artists, writers, curators, and cultural workers. I've exhibited at UCLA, Cal State LA, Museum of Art and History Lancaster, Coastline College, and galleries throughout Southern California. My work's been covered in LA Times, Artillery Magazine, Hyperallergic, and extensively in Art and Cake.

I teach (or taught) art history at Antelope Valley College and Pasadena City College. I serve as Secretary of the Brewery Artwalk Association. MA in Studio Art from Cal State Northridge, BA in Art History from the same institution, where I studied under Betty Ann Brown and Samantha Fields.

The political is practical: In 2012, I shaved my head and vowed not to grow my hair until beauty standards loosened and people weren't defined by physical attributes. I keep it buzzed because I know that won't happen in my lifetime. Daily resistance. Refusing to make myself smaller, more palatable, more acceptable.
My practice fuses feminist art history (Hannah Wilke, Ana Mendieta, Mary Kelly), body liberation movements, and community organizing strategies. I understand art-making as infrastructure-building—creating conditions for transformation, not just objects for contemplation.

The art world is having a complicated moment. Institutions roll back diversity commitments while claiming they care. Federal programs dismantle support systems. The structures that were supposed to level the playing field get quietly defunded.

This is exactly why alternative infrastructure matters. When institutions won't create equitable access, we build it ourselves. Social practice isn't just an art movement—it's survival strategy.

I'm based at the Brewery Artist Complex in Los Angeles. Twenty-plus years making work about bodies, beauty standards, illness, identity, chronic conditions, and what it means to live authentically when the culture keeps insisting you're wrong.

Sometimes the most radical art practice is just showing up for each other consistently, especially when the institutions won't.

The flat files are empty now. I've cut up everything. What comes after deconstruction? We build something new from the pieces—together.

Kristine Schomaker

Curriculum Vitae

Based at: Brewery Artist Complex, Los Angeles, CA
Contact: kristineschomaker@gmail.com | kristineschomaker.net

Education

MA, Studio Art | 2010 California State University, Northridge

BA, Art History | 2003 California State University, Northridge

Awards & Grants

2025 | CCI Cali Catalyst Changemakers Grant
2014 | Clothing Optional Juried Competition, First Place
2011 | Fabrik Magazine Juried Competition, Honorable Mention
2010 | CSUN Annual Juried Art Student Exhibition, Jurors Award

Artist Residencies

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2024 | Perceive Me 2 and Nude Portrait Sessions, Brewery Artwalk, Los Angeles
Perceive Me Redux and Nude Portrait Sessions, The Other Art Fair, Los Angeles
2023 | Perceive Me, Mesa College Art Gallery, San Diego
New Work, Shoebox Projects, Los Angeles
2022 | Perceive Me, Coastline Art Gallery, Newport Beach
Zoom Freeze Selfies, Another Year in LA, Virtual Exhibition
2021 | Perceive Me, Museum of Art and History, Lancaster
Perceive Me, Studio Channel Islands, Camarillo
Plus Crowne Plaza and Plus Hard Rock Hotel (new work), Another Year in LA, Virtual Exhibition
2020 | Perceive Me, Ronald H. Silverman Gallery, Cal State LA
2019 | New Paintings, Shoebox Projects, Los Angeles
Plus - Voices Matter, Moorpark Community College, Moorpark
2018 | Plus, Ark Gallery, Altadena
2015 | Mirror, Mirror!, Gallery H Phantom Galleries LA, Hawthorne
2014 | A Comfortable Skin, Kerckhoff Hall Art Gallery, UCLA
2013 | Ce n'est pas une peinture, TRACTIONARTS, Los Angeles
2012 | And one man in his time plays many parts, Gallery 825, Los Angeles
Don't Blink, Altadena City Library, Altadena

Selected Group Exhibitions

2025 | Wishlist 13, Gabba Gallery, Los Angeles
Spring Invitational, Los Angeles Makery, Los Angeles
The Other Side, Garel Fine Art, Manhattan Beach
2024 | More Disruption: Representational Art in Flux, Oceanside Museum of Art
MAS Attack, Torrance Art Museum
Rhizomatic Interventions, Yun Gee Park, Tucson
Exposition D'art Miniature, Altadena
2023 | Painted Dot, I-5 Gallery, Los Angeles
50/50, Coastline College Art Gallery, Newport Beach
2022 | Fast Forward: The Future is Female, Bermudez Projects, Los Angeles
Brewery Link, LA Artcore, Los Angeles
Realization, CSUN Art Gallery, Northridge (juried by Leonardo Bravo)
Duets/With, Coastline Art Gallery, Newport Beach
Begin/Again, Open Mind Art Space, Santa Monica
Sending Love, Keystone Art Space, Los Angeles
2021 | 2020: Our Vision Our Voices, Sloan Fine Art, Virtual Exhibition
High Beams #4: SPF 405, Torrance Art Museum
2020 | Drive-By-Art, Los Angeles
We Are Here/Here We Are, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles
Parlor Presents, Shoebox Projects, Los Angeles
2019 | Femella, Golden West College, Newport Beach
Kitsch-n-sync, Coastline Community College, Newport Beach
A Feminist Perspective 5.0, Ricardo Montalban Theatre, Hollywood
2018 | Fresh Start, LAVA Projects, Alhambra
She, Launch LA, Los Angeles
Beyond the Age of Reason, San Diego Art Institute
Dialectic of Being and Becoming, 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica
Let Me Eat Cake, POST, Los Angeles
2017 | Beautiful Parts, CSUN Art Gallery, Northridge
MARS Festival, Artshare LA (curated by Shana Nys Dambrot), Los Angeles
First Response, Keystone Art Space (curated by Nurit Avesar), Los Angeles
2016 | MAS Attack, Torrance Art Museum
Feminist Perspective 2.0, MuzeuMM, Los Angeles
Face in the Crowd, Artshare LA, Los Angeles
2015 | We Choose Art: A Feminist Perspective, The Montalban, Hollywood
An Odyssey, 10 Years at the Torrance Art Museum, Torrance Art Museum
Nature vs. Nurture, Red Pipe Gallery, Los Angeles

Published Books

Perceive Me Project Catalog | 2019

And one man in his time plays many parts (Exhibition Catalog) | 2012

My Life as an Avatar | 2010
1000 Avatars, Volume 1 | 2011
1000 Avatars, Volume 2 | 2011

Selected Curatorial Projects

2023 | Connections, Collage Artists of America (Juror)
2022 | Ink & Clay 45, Cal Poly Pomona (Juror)
Perceive You, Shoebox Projects (Curator)
2021 | Sculpture Garden at High Beams, Torrance Art Museum (Curator)
2020 | Perceive Me, Ronald H. Silverman Gallery, Cal State LA (Curator)
2019 | Let Me Eat Cake, Too, Blue Roof Studios (Curator)
2018 | Let Me Eat Cake, POST (Curator)
2016 | Feminist Perspective 2.0, MuzeuMM (Curator)
2015 | We Choose Art: A Feminist Perspective, The Montalban (Co-Curator)

Arts Leadership

Founder & Director | Shoebox Arts (2014–present)
Comprehensive artist support network providing mentorship, resources, and community building

Publisher | Art and Cake Magazine (2016–present)
Contemporary LA art publication amplifying underrepresented voices (1,881+ articles published)

Secretary- President | Brewery Artwalk Association (2013-2024)
Former President | CSUN Arts Alumni Association (2021–2023)

Teaching Experience

Adjunct Instructor, Art History | Pasadena City College (2010)
Adjunct Instructor, Art History | Antelope Valley College (2004–2007)

Selected Press

Dazed and Confused | "Why Kristine Schomaker asked 60 other artists to make nude portraits of her"
LA Times | "Artist bares plus-sized body, soul for 60 artists in 'Perceive Me' exhibit"
Artillery Magazine | "Perceive The Passion: January ends with heat"
Hyperallergic | "A view from the Easel"

Performance Art

2015 | Island Girls, bG Gallery, Los Angeles
2013 | Gracie Kendal's So-called Second Life, DTMD13 Academic Conference, England
2012 | Second Skin, Gallery 825, Los Angeles
The Bald and The Beautiful, Artist21, Brewery Arts Complex
2011 | Gracie and the Real Girl, Persona exhibition opening, Canoga Park

Collections

Works held in private collections including California State University Northridge and collectors throughout the United States and internationally.

Full CV and additional documentation available upon request