Dana Schutz is an American artist who merges organic and geometric in her colorfully abstracted paintings. Among other things, she loves to paint situations that might be considered awkward or embarrassing in real life. Her work dips into expressionism and realism, but bright colors and humorous subjects are constants in all her paintings.

Reformers, 2004

 I enjoy Schutz's paintings for their comedic absurdity, where crazy situations are compared to our normally unquestioned realities and entertaining works of fiction are easily related to our natural experiences. Dana expresses a lot of interesting concepts in her work like a race of self-cannibalizers or a situation in which she is stuck painting the last man on earth, and I think her paintings are best appreciated with these narratives in mind (although it should be said that the paintings are visually entertaining even without context, which isn't always common in abstract works). 

Face Eater, 2004

One of the best things about Dana's work is its fearlessness. She experiments with many subjects that I can tell she's very entertained by, and I don't feel she gets stuck on one idea or holds back on any creative impulses. 

"Usually before I start making a painting I’ll sketch or write lists of ideas for paintings that may or may not end up being made. Like: paint a stuffed-animal fight, or a time machine, or a boy with handmade features getting a haircut. That will get things going... When I am blocked I start drawing, writing, thinking about different ideas and reading. Sometimes I’ll respond to things that I’ve just made. I think it’s part of the process to get frustrated and then get a bunch of new ideas."

Simultaneously, I think that she paints for her audience's enjoyment. She even puts herself in the position of the audience and wonders when to incorporate herself in the fiction of the painting, as she does with her "Last Man on Earth" series. Ultimately there isn't anything too personal, abstract, or scholarly in her work to make it inaccessible to general audiences, and I believe this accessibility is something to be admired when a primary strength of art is its use as a communicative tool. Schutz is thus someone I can really admire for her empathy as well as her creativity.

Chris's Rubber Soul, 2001