Fotograf Magazine

A German-born immigrant who arrived in the United States years ago at the age of 25, Schmidt explores the ethos of America in relationship to nature as well as the culture’s traditional and contemporary gender roles and in Home Stills. Set in and around her home in eastern Long Island, this series of portraits is a form of self-discovery, logically following the artist’s previous work on home and identity. She draws parallels to Transcendentalism and 19^th century Romantic painters and poets, incorporating references from those including Friedrich Schiller and Caspar David Friedrich whose quest for self-discovery was stimulated by nature’s unpredictability. Likewise, she references psychologically charged works from the Pre-Raphaelite era which present females as lone creatures, ring-fenced by their domestic surroundings. In each scene, Schmidt embodies variations of the archetypal everywoman – feminine symbols of the American Dream, both conventional and otherwise.