Today, from our roster of impressive artists participating in “The Big Payback”, we feature San Franciscan artist Andrew Schoultz, a master at intricate design and complex execution. Listen in on a convo between Schoultz and fellow artist (and auction contributor) Caleb Neelon.

Caleb Neelon: I’ll start with a question I hate to answer. What do you say to people you meet who’ve never seen your work and ask you to verbally describe it?

Andrew Schoultz: This is always a tough one for me. Most recently I have been describing my work as being influenced by a cross-section of fifteenth century German mapmaking and fifteenth century Indian miniature painting as they meet the more contemporary influences of comic and graffiti art, with a political undertone. I might also describe it as being very detailed, with lots of line work and very obsessive as well. It seems as though in many ways art doesn’t translate over to word descriptions very accurately, which is one of my favorite things about art: nonverbal communication.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but when you began showing your work in galleries you were primarily known as a muralist, and over the years you’ve done fewer murals. What do you miss about that medium, and what have galleries offered you in their place?

I have definitely done fewer murals over the past two years; however, I am far from done with them. I might say I have just begun in many respects. I am planning on getting back to them very soon. I just sort of took a little break for awhile. It is very hard to find a good wall to do a mural on, let alone permission and funding. Not that these things ever stopped me from doing murals in the past. I guess with age I am becoming a little bit more particular, too, in my approach to them, and in all my work for that matter. But yes, I have been focusing primarily on gallery work for the past two years. Gallery installation seemed really open for different approaches, and a vast sea of possibilities to me. I am psyched on the freedom of possibilities with indoor work. It can be fragile, and a lot more than just a painting on a wall. I also feel more inclined to experiment with installation in a gallery setting than with mural work. Experimentation has been very important with my work in the past years, and it has always been a priority for me to keep moving forward.

In the past couple of years you’ve been making these epic paper works. What brought that about?

I have always been into making drawings and working on paper. I love drawing with pens and many other things that don’t really work very well on canvas, wood, or walls. One day a couple years ago I just really saw a purpose in working on paper. That purpose was mixed media, which is currently my favorite way to work. Paper is really open for so many mediums and tends to be a lot quicker and simpler way to get an idea out of your system. You can draw with all kinds of pencils, pens, inks, collage, watercolors, dyes, plus do all the things you do when painting. It’s the best of both worlds. After years and years of solely painting and not really drawing at all, it was a breath of fresh air to find a more unrestrained, immediate, and spontaneous way to work than just painting. It has been really fun to experiment with works on paper and has been key in the recent developments in my work. A drawing on paper has a lot different look than a painting. I love painting just as much; it’s just a totally different process with totally different possibilities and results. I never like to limit myself, which has been a blessing and a curse at the same time.

Excerpt from Juxtapoz #75, April 2007. Interview by Caleb Neelon.
 

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