Noah Schmitz
- Anna Lilli Garai
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Noah Schmitz builds his paintings slowly, layer by layer. He adds, removes, scrapes back, then starts again. Some parts stay sharp, others fall apart. He works with rules just long enough to break them. Texture matters. So do small shifts and unexpected changes. His paintings don’t aim for perfection — they’re shaped by process, and you can see where they’ve been. Nothing feels polished, but everything has its place. The result is direct, careful, and full of quiet decisions.
Q: Your paintings play with texture and illusion. What keeps you coming back to paint when it could almost be anything?
A: I’m drawn to the visual satisfaction of bringing drastically different textures together harmoniously. Texture, to me, is the personality of each form—whether it’s worn, scratched, or smooth. I love how paint, with its viscosity and tactility, can emulate so many materials. It lets me distill elements of tapestry, embroidery, collage, and drawing into one cohesive image. I’m especially interested in creating the illusion of a collaged surface that, upon closer inspection, is entirely constructed with paint.
Q: You build systems, then undo them. What’s the appeal of pulling things apart?
A: Beginning my process with a complete image in mind leaves little room for discovery, while confronting a blank canvas overwhelms me with the endless possibilities of a starting-off point. So I build systems—rules of color, texture, or form—with the sole purpose of pushing against them. There’s beauty in symmetry, but it’s the unraveling that excites me. Undoing invites surprise, and in that disruption, the painting starts to feel alive.
Q: The surfaces feel worn, scraped, aged. What do you like about that kind of erosion?
A: I think of each painting as a topographical landscape—layered, weathered, shaped by time. The surface holds the final image, but what lies beneath carries its own quiet weight. Erosion, through means of sanding and scraping, lets the history of the painting live alongside its final form, giving those buried marks the same sense of authority and presence. Adopting this archaeological approach to painting relies on uncovering what lies beneath, rather than layering on something entirely fresh.
Q: You mix tight structure with loose, messy marks. How do you keep that balance from tipping too far?
A: Tightness is by far my worst enemy. The messy, gestural marks are my starting point—playful and intuitive, allowing me to find loose forms. When I introduce tighter structures and patterns, I often start to obsess over the details and find myself tormented over little moments that the viewer may not even notice. Masking with painter’s tape is a double-edged sword. As a tool, it allows for a level of machine-like precision, but also draws attention to the most minute irregularities. Oftentimes in my work, I find myself over-relying on masking until it becomes a crutch. It requires a constant back and forth of balancing its highly refined quality with painterly moves and chance operations to breathe life back into the painting.
Q: You’ve mentioned entropy as part of the process. What does falling apart look like in your studio?
A: Entropy is central to my process—the inevitable degradation of order into chaos. When a conventional system I’ve built reaches its limit, breaking it down doesn’t return it to its original division; instead, it creates something entirely novel.
This process of constructing for the sake of dismantling illustrates the fleeting, unpredictable nature of form-making, where entropy reigns and structure eventually gives way to transformation. I want the viewer to feel caught in that moment between construction and collapse—as if the painting is both coming together and falling apart at the same time.
Q: Even when the work’s abstract, it feels like it’s about touch. What kind of physicality are you chasing?
A: I think about what it would be like to reach into the painting and feel around—would your hand pass through the forms, or could you hold onto them? Would they resist or yield to human touch? I’m interested in utilizing various painting techniques in order to create the illusion of weight or tangibility. For the last five years, my work has remained distinctly flat in an attempt to emulate painted collage and tapestry. In the last year, however, my paintings have taken on a new sense of dimension within an observable space. Aided by a subtle light source and soft shadows, the newer works are moving away from that central flatness and becoming more of a window to look through.
