Frieze | Critics’ Guides: Your Guide to Amsterdam Art Weekend 2018 | by Carina Bukuts

Iris Schomaker. ‘Walking the Line’
Reflex Amsterdam
23 November 2018 – 12 January 2019

‘Drawing is like taking a line for a walk.’ The title of Iris Schomaker’s upcoming show ‘Walking the Line’ at Reflex Amsterdam seems to be a reference to Paul Klee’s famous quote. Looking at her works on paper, there is no doubt that Schomaker takes this approach seriously. The black and white figures she paints don’t appear to consist of flesh, but only of geometric formations and a contemplation of lines. But instead of taking the line for a walk and to draw and paint without any guidance, Schomaker always has a concrete setting in mind and walks the line in a particular direction. Her paintings are quiet and set in an atmosphere of solitude and absence. Hands are folded, crossed or hidden; bodies lean against walls, sit quietly on chairs or are asleep; faces are out of focus. Schomaker’s figures are out of place and detached from the environment they’re set in.  While figurative elements collide with painterly abstraction, it is the line that holds them both together.

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