McKenzie Fine Art: Pete Schulte 2021 Exhibition


	Pete Schulte: The Train and the River October 29 - December 19, 2021
	For the past twenty-five years, the daily practice of drawing has been at the core of Pete Schulte’s artistic endeavors, whether working on paper, three-dimensional objects, site-specific wall drawings, or installations. The primary focus of this exhibition is works on paper, using graphite with the occasional addition of pigment and ink. While geometric imagery predominates, some works in the exhibition depict non-specific curvilinear shapes suggestive of natural forms. Schulte’s drawings are notable for their precise and nuanced touch, exquisite surfaces, and softly glowing light. Color is used in a limited manner, focusing attention and heightening its impact. Diffuse hues appear to emerge from within the imagery or to dissipate and dissolve in translucent particles. The scale of the work is generally small and intimate, with most of the drawings ranging from 7 x 7 inches to 21 x 21 inches, with one notable exception, a narrow drawing measuring over 90 inches high, part of Schulte’s ongoing Braid series. In this restricted format the artist draws repeating shapes, here softly rendered feather-shaped ellipses anchored by a narrow central black line. Related to the narrow drawing is a slender cast bronze object measuring 90 inches tall. Here, the repeated forms are overlapping turtle shells, painted down the center in acrylic with a stylized spinal column. While the shells suggest permanence and hardness, over time the unsealed surface patina of the bronze will change character. Only the painted spinal column structure will remain unchanged. Hallmarks of Schulte’s work have long been the subtle power of simple forms, pictorial spaces that are at once architectural and intimate, and the mysterious duality of what is within and what is without. The exhibition title references the long tradition of gospel, blues, folk, and country songs which speak of unhurried trains and meandering bodies of water, echoing the qualities of deliberate slowness, quiet, and unguardedness in Schulte’s drawings and objects. Pete Schulte (b.1970, Rock Island, IL) received his M.F.A. in painting and drawing from The University of Iowa in 2008. He resides in Birmingham and teaches at The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Since 2002 he has shown his work in gallery and museum exhibitions across the country and in Europe. Schulte’s work has been reviewed in Hyperallergic, Art in America, New Art Examiner, and Maake Magazine, among others.