Jul 1

Stefanie Schneider

Stefanie Schneider is a photographer and filmmaker who has exhibited in the United States, Brazil, and across Europe in Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, Austria, and Belgium. Since 1998 she has participated in over 100 exhibitions to date and her work remains in collections across Europe and North America. Stefanie frequently participates in art fairs across the United States and Europe and her work has been featured and published in five books by European publishers. Her art has been published in hundreds

of magazine and news articles, most notably with a somewhat recent critical essay by the New York Times.

The photography contains a setting of the American West with vintage overtones containing actors dressed in attire, dated hair styles, and using props from the 1960’s. Usually set out in a Western desert or suburbia, the actors range in behavior such as frolicing, posing, waiting, in a state of worry, sexual, and even violence. Stefanie’s process pertains to using expired polaroid film, reshooting the polaroids in her studio, and then using the lab process and chemical emulsions to create a grainy and aged appearance to the photography.

These retro, aged-appearing photographs create staged scenes reminiscing on America's golden era. The art reflects on the aesthetic and distant familiarity of a historic generation while succumbing to contemporary aesthetics in regards to portraying emotional human behavior and centralized compositions on theatrical scenes. The photographs pan out much like a film or theatre play resembling arthouse films from the 1980’s such as David Lynch’s Blue Velvet in regards to portraying retro subject matter but with a psychological twist. Stefanie’s actors and settings create scenes of reminiscence with a sense of adventure, drama, and escape. Some of the scenes may play out joyfully such as women frolicing in a Southern California or Nevada Desert with dated, colorful hairstyles and posing with vintage toy guns. Other scenes come off more dramatic with one series portraying a woman in what appears to be in the aftermath of a murder while a few other series contain sexually explicit poses. Sometimes there are no actors and the photographs contain images of aged infrastructure invoking nostalgic memories of an era often forgotten in the self-indulging contemporary world.

Dream Scene on Salt Lake (29 Palms, CA) (pictured above) contains a setting of three women on a boat within a vast desert. The scene seems like an indirect allegory to the three sirens who lured Odysseus and his crew in The Odyssey by Homer. Like as if the sirens are searching and waiting for their male prey in an ironic setting of a boat contained in a desert. Their dress remains formal, perhaps retro bridesmaid gowns with sun umbrellas which offer shelter from the heat and blinding glare of the sun. The women appear to be searching in three different directions as if in a dazed stupor and not realizing the land underneath them has suddenly dried up, turning into a wasteland. Like an installation with actors, the scene comes off as a direct work of art with irony rather than one of drama or comedy.

Stefanie Schneider creates riveting retro scenarios harkening the viewer towards a golden age of western grit. With a sense of erosion, rust, and grainy qualities, the chemically altered and aged photography share experiences of actors representing ironic or dramatic poses and staged events. Stefanie can be described as an overseer and staged director portraying how America interprets and reflects upon her past iconic glories. In essence, Stefanie engages the viewer to reflect on distant familiarity of an era and region which reminisce with global contemporary cultural influence.