Artist Bio

Toby Gotesman Schneier is an American, Expressionist Painter, best known for her unique ability to transform objects, people, scenes, & events into jarring and provocative works
of art.

While seemingly casting aside any sense of the expected, she perpetually strikes a chord of the utterly sublime & creates a viewer fascination with every painting.

Her compassion for THE HUMAN CONDITION, as well as her indefatigable belief in a HIGHER POWER are conspicuous throughout the work.

 

It has been frequently noted that her art evokes a poignant sense of nostalgia and sentiment, even longing in the
viewer, as the pieces appear to be laced with familiarity, ethnicity, & a heightened sense of irony & collective injustice.

Her unabashed and highly unusual use of color, shape, and texture, her astounding lack of conventional art mores, as well as her keen ability to SHOCK the viewer into some sort of ACTION with her BOLD & DIRECT IMAGERY, have gleaned her enormous notoriety throughout the International Art Community.

Her Critically Acclaimed, HOLOCAUST, HOMELESS, & HIV/AIDS COLLECTIONS, as well as her more WHIMSICAL, WOMEN IN DRESSES, UMBRELLAS, BEACH, & ABSTRACT COLLECTIONS address a veritable plethora of subject matter & an impressive scope of abilities & viewpoints.

Gotesman Schneier somehow inserts & embeds a level of coding & mission into the paintings.

One never knows for certain whether the area in question was accidental or purely strategic on the artist’s part. This kind of intriguing symbolism has become a signature of her work.

Her true passion is her insatiable need to depict HUMAN SUFFERING in all of its disconcerting TRUTH. The paintings have an IN YOUR FACE quality, while somehow capturing intrinsic beauty as well.

Her mantra being ,as quoted in myriad magazines and news articles, “TRAGEDY ALWAYS HAPPENS IN COLOR. Well, actually LIFE always happens in color.”

Her paintings are housed in several esteemed private collections and have been exhibited extensively in distinguished museums, galleries, municipalities, & college campuses globally. 

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ARTIST’S STATEMENT
I am frequently struck by the sheer beauty of the people, objects and scenes which surround us every day, directly and shockingly juxtaposed with the colossal inequity that abounds in the very same moments. The COLORS, the inescapable cornflower BLUE SKY of a July morning, the YELLOW & GOLD mist floating just above the atmosphere and filter ing down upon the pavement, the RED of a perfect tomato, the RED of blood. The YELLOW & GOLD hovering over the homeless man lying on that same pavement. How can it be that these beautiful hues exist even in the most horrific of times? How can the faces of the most troubled people be so beautiful? These questions have always baffled me. Somewhere along the way, the realization that injustice, inequality and tragedy, ironically happen under the very same blue sky as birthday parties and barbecues, became crystalline to me. This disconnect began to have weight – legs, even. I suppose that these sentiments can be expressed most precisely for me in the paintings–that life is not all one thing, that actual aesthetic BEAUTY is not always wrapped into perfect moments. These seemingly simple, ordinary things – COLOR, SHAPE, FORM, MATTER. All of them inform me, in no uncertain terms, that there is a suggestion of destiny, a bigger pic ture– whispering constantly in my ear to create a footprint of sorts. So that the DISCOMFORT has a place to rest just beside the MAGIC. And so, humbly I attempt to somehow impart that which I see & experience to YOU, the viewer of my paintings. My hope is that the work will perhaps move you in some way – in ANY way. Perhaps my work will ignite a need to act even, as the objects I’m attempting to de pict, have indeed, moved me to action. This kaleidoscope of irony, metaphor, and pure allegory, needs to be shared, needs to be ex posed somehow. Or perhaps one needs to be exposed to IT, if even a modicum of anything on the canvas resonates with you, whether it be disconcerting, heart-breaking, pleasing, or simply familiar, then I suppose that I’ve done my job. Thank you for allowing me to share these very personal thoughts with you. ~