I am so excited to share, the Perceive Me, soft cover edition is now available for purchase.
Order it now for $50 and pick it up at the opening reception for Perceive Me on January 25th 5-8pm! We are having a special signing starting at 4 where you can get your catalog and each artist will sign their page. Most of the artists will be there early.
Included in the 175 page catalog are four important essays by art critic Shana Nys Dambrot, artist and writers Nancy Kay Turner, Rebecca Niederlander and Gary Brewer, as well as passages written by a lot of the artists.
You can purchase the soft cover catalog for $50 today. I also have 6 limited edition, hard cover catalogs available for $100. Email me for more information.
To Purchase: You can pay via venmo @kristineschomaker / Paypal to kristineschomaker@gmail.com / send a check to my address at Kristine Schomaker 660 South Avenue 21 #3 LA CA 90031 (please email me to let me know you are sending a check) or email me at kristineschomaker@gmail.com for more information.
PLEASE INCLUDE "SOFT COVER CATALOG" IN YOUR SUBJECT LINE.
Catalogs are also available via Amazon for $56. But you can purchase one now at $50 until the opening reception.
"Perceive Me" focuses on notions of self-worth, validation and the idea that we value our identity based on how we imagine others perceive us.
Who are we in the eyes of other people? Does it matter? Should it matter? What do you look like? Are you beautiful, ugly, weird, crazy, sad, frumpy, glamorous, fabulous, dirty, depressed? Why do we take other people's opinions of ourselves so seriously? Why should we care? Does it change our opinion of ourselves? Does it affect our daily lives?
To answer these questions, I have asked 60 artists to create nude portraits of me. They have responded with paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, video and a 3D print.
"Perceive Me" opens with an exhibition at California State University, Los Angeles January 25, 2020. The show will also travel to Coastline Community College, Mesa Community College, McNish Art Gallery at Oxnard College, Museum of Art and History in Lancaster and College of the Sequoias in Visalia over the next couple years.
The amazing artists included are: Amanda Mears, Anna Kostanian, Anna Stump, Ashley Bravin, Austin Young, Baha Danesh, Betzi Stein, Bibi Davidson, Bradford J Salamon, Caron G Rand, Carson Grubaugh, Catherine Ruane, Chris Blevins-Morrison, Christina Ramos, Cynda Valle, Daena Title, Daggi Wallace, Dani Dodge, Debbie Korbel, Debby/Larry Kline, Debe Arlook, Diane Cockerill, Donna Bates, Elizabeth Tobias, Ellen Friedlander, Emily Wiseman, Geneva Costa, Holly Boruck, J Michael Walker, Jane Szabo, Janet Milhomme, Jeffrey Sklan, Jesse Standlea, John Waiblinger, Jorin Bossen, K Ryan Henisey, Karen Hochman Brown, Kate Kelton, Kate Savage, Kerri Sabine-Wolf, Kim Kimbro, L Aviva Diamond, Leslie Lanxinger, Mara Zaslove, Marjorie Salvaterra, Martin Cox, Monica Sandoval, Nancy Kay Turner, Nurit Avesar, Phung Huynh, Rakeem Cunningham, Serena Potter, Sheli Silverio, Susan Amorde, Susan T. Kurland, Sydney Walters, Tanya Ragir, Tony Pinto, Vicki Walsh
ABOUT THE PROJECT:
I grew up hating to have my photograph taken. I remember when I was 11 or 12, my grandma took my brother and I on a road trip to San Francisco. She took every spare moment to take photos. I have one photo that I deliberately had a bitchy face because I was getting frustrated with all of the pictures. I didn't like the way I looked. I didn't want my ugly, large nose and chin to be memorialized. As I got older, I went through periods with my friends where we would take photos and put them in albums or wallets or frames. We threw away so many where we didn't look good. Back then, we got them printed at Walmart. We didn't have the option to delete them from our phones or cameras and retake them.
When I was working on my master’s degree at Cal State Northridge, I entered the painting program with my abstract paintings, but left with a degree after doing my thesis focused on my body, eating disorder and my ideal avatar who I so desperately wanted to be. She was tall, thin, blond, classy... beautiful. I felt I was not. My avatar was based on my 'ideal' self. She had my personality, my wit, my intelligence, but she was beautiful. She was everything I wished I could be on the outside.
10 years later, “Perceive Me” has brought me right back to that place. Posing and modeling for these 60 artists, I felt like a supermodel. I felt thin, bold, beautiful, classy, elegant, sexy... everything my avatar was, but that I wasn't. The artwork was amazing. Then I looked in the mirror...
Officially I have been working on “Perceive Me” for two years. My first official collaboration was with Amanda Mears. She had invited me to work with her on a drawing project she was working on. During our sessions, we had great conversations about body image and how we reflect, project and perceive how we imagine others see us. “Perceive Me” was born.
Before Amanda, I had worked with Chris Blevins-Morrison when she was documenting women artists in 2014 and J Michael Walker for his “Bodies Mapping Time” project in 2018. For both shoots, I posed nude. When “Perceive Me” began, I realized I needed to include these collaborations in the project. After I worked with Amanda, I started a list of artists whose work focused on the woman’s body. I was only going to include 40 artists, then 50 and the list grew to 60.
“Perceive Me” Is not just an exhibition or a catalog or Instagram posts. It is a platform for empowerment, for owning who we are, for being unique and authentic, for taking back out bodies in the #metoo movement, for being true, powerful and strong no matter what body shape, size, color, gender we are. “Perceive Me” is for everyone.
BIO:
Kristine Schomaker is a Los Angeles based multidisciplinary artist, art historian and curator. She received her BA in Art History and MA in Studio Art from California State University Northridge where she studied under Betty Ann Brown, Alexandra Grant and Samantha Fields. Schomaker has been exhibiting her work since the late 1990’s. She has had solo exhibitions throughout Los Angeles: “Plus” at Ark Gallery in Altadena, “Mirror, Mirror!” Gallery H Phantom Galleries LA, Hawthorne, California, “And One Man in his time plays many parts” at the Los Angeles Art Association, “Plus” at Moorpark College Art Gallery, “A Comfortable Skin,” Kerckhoff Hall Art Gallery UCLA, presented by UCLA Cultural Arts Commission, Los Angeles, California and “Ce n’est pas une peinture,” TRACTIONARTS, Los Angeles, California. Schomaker has also been featured in numerous exhibitions including most recently, Coastline Community College Art Gallery, Launch LA, Golden West College Art Gallery, LAVA projects, Keystone Art Space, Claremont Graduate University Art Gallery, San Diego Art Institute, Surrogate Projects, 18th Street Art Center, Durden and Ray, We Rise, USC Keck, Blue Roof Studios, Shoebox Projects, Monte Vista Projects, Gabba Gallery, Finishing Concepts, PØST, Artshare LA, Brainworks Gallery, BLAM, MuseuMM, Torrance Art Museum, I-5 Gallery and Angel City Brewery.
In addition to being a practicing artist Schomaker is the founder of Shoebox PR, oversees and curates an alternative art space for Shoebox Projects at the Brewery in Los Angeles, she is an independent curator, founder of the online contemporary art magazine Art and Cake and sits on two non-profit art boards: CSUN Arts Alumni Association and the Brewery Artwalk Association. Kristine has taught art history at Antelope Valley College and Pasadena City College, formed an artist collective in Los Angeles and has organized and curated numerous art exhibitions throughout Southern California.
Check out more of my work:
Instagram: @kristineschomaker
