Petra Schott
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Dec 16, 2025
- 6 min read
Petra Schott is a German painter based in Frankfurt. She came to painting after a long career in law, and since leaving the legal profession in 2014 she has worked full time as an artist. Her paintings often start without a fixed plan, with color and the first marks setting the direction. She works slowly, returning to the canvas over time. Drawing, writing, or using her left hand helps her keep the process open and less controlled.
In our interview we talk about how painting became essential to her life, how she starts new works without fixed plans, and why oil remains her main material. She also reflects on intuition versus experience in the studio, the role of memory, and what she’s curious to explore next in her work.
Q: How did your visual world first begin to take shape for you?
A: I began painting as a kind of distraction and a counterbalance to the concentrated, categorical thinking required in law. Later, after completing both of my state exams in law, I enrolled in a fine arts program in Kassel. For many years, I worked as a lawyer while continuing my painting on the side. But in the end, painting does not tolerate being done “on the side.” Only when I left the legal profession in 2014 did my visual world truly begin to take shape. That was when the obsessive momentum set in, and painting became a necessity for me — a form of expression, a way of life that I no longer want to be without. This only became possible once I began spending many hours in the studio more or less every day.
Q: When you start a new painting, what usually draws you in first?
A: Sometimes I start with an idea, or with the desire to bring certain colors more to the forefront — but often, already after the first brushstrokes, something else takes center stage. The first strokes begin to dance, and I support this dance with something entirely different from what I had initially imagined. Often, I also try consciously to free myself from any notions of how the painting should ultimately look and let things take their own course. When I have a very clear idea of what should appear on the canvas, it often goes wrong and becomes tense. My paintings can only truly unfold when I allow them to run free. Only then do I feel I can discover something new.
Q: You often draw into your paintings with your left hand. What changes for you when you work that way?
A: The left hand is connected to creativity and intuition. My impression is that the strokes are fresher, more lively, and more energetic than when I draw with my right hand, which somehow always tries to do it “correctly.” I love the element of drawing and writing in my work because, for me, it provides a counterbalance to luxuriating in rich oil colors.
Q: How do color and texture help you find the direction of a piece?
A: Certain colors keep recurring in my work, while others appear only very rarely. Some colors evoke a kind of happiness in me, and I keep returning to them for that reason. I also enjoy the texture of oil paints. They can be applied thickly, giving the colors a rich, impasto effect, but they can also be worked very delicately, almost like watercolor. As I work on a painting, I notice that a certain color works very well in a particular spot — or sometimes it disrupts the whole composition. So it is always a process of trial and error until the painting finds its final form.
Q: Memories and childhood experiences appear in your work. How do they surface while you’re painting?
A: My themes, memories, and experiences usually emerge in my work without my noticing. They seem to hover in the background, and at some point during the process, I recognize them. I often rotate my paintings and sit for a long time simply observing them. Oil paint, in any case, always needs some time to dry between layers, which gives me the chance to calmly look again and again at what is coming through. Sometimes I pick up the thread and work on a certain area more intensively, for example by making it more figurative; other times, I let it go entirely and paint over it.
Q: Your process is guided by intuition. What does that look like in the studio day to day?
A: In fact, I very often begin my work in what I call an intuitive state. For me, this means that I don’t think for long but simply pick up the brush — sometimes with a bit of paint left from the day before — and make the first strokes. The first layer of a painting usually emerges in this very free, intuitive process, sometimes accompanied by music. After that, however, the process of observing and seeing what comes to the surface and how it could develop begins. This is no longer purely intuitive but guided by the experience I have gained through working. I might pick up a color and intensify it by spreading it over a larger area, use different brush sizes to bring more detail into the work, rotate the painting to gain a new viewpoint and open up new perspectives, and so on. This part of the process is less intuitive and more shaped by experience and by this particular kind of visual understanding that comes with painting. In any case, it is still not about thinking — it is about playful experimentation and continuing until I feel that the work has reached its conclusion.
Q: What keeps you returning to oil paint as your main material?
A: Yes, indeed, I keep returning to oil paints. I particularly enjoy using highly pigmented, sometimes even handmade oil paints, which I believe have a special color intensity. I love the texture of oil when it is applied more thickly, in an impasto manner, but I also appreciate its translucent delicacy. Oil is very forgiving — you can apply many layers on top of each other, and the painting still retains its vitality. For me, it is therefore the most versatile medium. I sometimes also use ink or acrylic, but oil paint remains my preferred medium.
Q: You often speak about reconnecting with nature and humanity. How does that connection appear while you’re working?
A: When I paint, I feel like I am in a sacred space. That may sound a bit lofty, but for me, it is exactly like that. It is a space where I can come closest to myself — and, through that, to everything happening around me. In this way, a feeling of deep connection arises, a feeling of belonging which is very precious and very healing for me. This sense of connectedness is what I have tried to express.
Q: Does anything from your earlier career in law still influence how you work today, if at all?
A: I believe that my long career as a lawyer has shaped me in certain ways. In addition to painting, as an artist I also have to organize my works, photograph them, include them in a catalogue raisonné, work with galleries, and so on. For this kind of work, a certain sense of order and system is certainly helpful. I also think that precisely because I worked for so long in law, I can especially enjoy this freedom and joy in painting. I relish not having to prove anything, not having to do anything right or wrong, taking the easiest path, working playfully, and not having to overthink things.
Q: Looking ahead, what would you like to explore next in your painting?
A: As I mentioned before, I don’t make too many plans or set goals for the future, because they bind me and feel restrictive. So I haven’t set myself any fixed aim or task for the future. Still, there is something I would like to explore more deeply, and that is working on a canvas while making more of a sculpture out of the canvas itself. Whether that will ever really come to fruition, I don’t know. I trust that these things will evolve in their own time.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petra.schott.art/
Galleries: https://www.tappancollective.com/collections/petra-schott, https://www.artsy.net/artist/petra-schott
Website: http://www.petra-schott.de
Portrait credit: Sabine Steffens
