Continuing through May 10, 2025
Of the 16 recent paintings and one watercolor presented in “Linescapes,” Andrew Schoultz features 12 stylized depictions of owls. The birds are almost always perched on a tree branch behind which is woven a psychedelic backdrop of pulsating fluorescent colors. Are these the ancient Owls of Minerva? Perhaps they are the avatars of an obscure zodiac. Or are they sentinel figures guarding an ethereal fantasy land? Maybe. They certainly are ominous, seeming to foreshadow some impending moment of doom or salvation.
Like the paintings that they inhabit, they vary in size, but their appearance is consistent enough to suggest that stencils were used to fix their shapes, looking like large rubber stamp impressions. The tree branches are more freeform, resembling fairy tale thickets of contorted brambles. In many instances, they sport colored foliage made of almond shaped leaves of different candy colors, sometimes painted and sometimes affixed like collage elements.
These factors come alive when we notice the intense colors that dominate the paintings (how could anyone not notice them?). These are formed of fluorescent acrylics, adroitly applied as interwoven webs to create what optical scientists call a Mach Band effect, explaining how they pulsate with intense chromatic energy. These color webs turn the pictorial spaces into vertiginous swoons that draw our eyes into their spatial illusions only to push them back out to their graphic surfaces.
Schoultz’s work has been termed visionary by some, alluding to a regrettable movement in northern California painting from the early 1970s. But fairness reminds us that not all of the Visionary Art painters trafficked in neo-hippy claptrap illustration. For example, the work of Jesse Allen or Franklin Williams turned up the volume on Op Art effects to enliven their neo-symbolist images with painterly energy. East coast artist Alex Grey masterfully used intense color to turn medical illustration diagrams into Tantric phantasmagoria. Schoultz’s new paintings are equally phantasmagoric, but they convey a darker and more sinister vibe, intimating fearful possibilities lurking just out of view.
It is worth noting that Schoultz lived in San Francisco before he moved to southern California 11 years ago. Though he was not recognized as a member of the Mission School, his early work was in part inspired by street art, and this show indicates that it continues to be. In his San Francisco days, Schoultz cut his artistic teeth at the Prescita Eyes mural project, working on community murals throughout San Francisco. That influence, combined with the burgeoning street art movement that flourished in the 1990s, shaped Schoultz’s aesthetic, which he has taken in a different direction from other street art inspired painters.
Since at least the 1960s there has been a vital street mural tradition in San Francisco. Early on this reflected the visual priorities of the Latinex community centered in the Mission district. The Prescita Eyes project served as the bridge between that older tradition and the 1990s revival of outdoor mural painting. Additional influences have included elements of Pop Surrealism and Social Practice.
The point, as far as Schoultz’s “Linescapes” are concerned, is how they artfully synthesize and expand upon those traditions while also representing a rare instance of successfully transitioning a mural aesthetic into an exhibition of easel painting — something that many have tried and at which very few have succeeded. This is not to say that the mural aesthetic is not apparent here. Most of the paintings are interspersed on large walls upon which Schoultz has painted colorful murals as backdrop, all configured as interlaced webs of arcing gestures that converge into the same Mach Band effects that we see in the paintings. The exhibition becomes an Op Art wonderland. Schoultz will return to the gallery to paint or repaint more murals from May 8th to 10th. The public is invited to observe and ask questions.
