“Art found me, and from that moment on, I just knew I had to pursue it,” explains the native New Yorker and prolific painter of hybrid sculptural works. “I quit my job and changed career paths entirely. It has been art full-time ever since… How many people can say they are doing exactly what they want to be doing in life? And for that, I am extremely grateful. I am literally living my dream.” Working with found items and castaway materials, Shuldiner mines chaos for beauty. What he calls ”hybridsculpturalpaintings”™ – his works demand immediate engagement and trigger a visceral response. At once painterly, intentional and spontaneous, his pieces probe the many disparate associations culturally ascribed to the color black. Hailing his own unique style “bruteminimalism,”™ Shuldiner even has his own custom proprietary black variant, (based on the ‘life’ element carbon): “postapocalypticblack.”™ His works explore the subtlety of difference produced through repetition, the distortion of context and matter “the layers and layers of information seen and (un)seen… Beyond conditioned habits of perception, thought, speech,” imagine, “where quantum mechanics become spiritual and meaning and classification dissolve.” For Shuldiner, the color BLACK is “undefined signifier, multi-coded metaphor and paradoxical koan of [absolute] nothingness…” Working again and again with this misunderstood, mysterious, powerful “[non]color” his paintings take on the appearance of dream life, illusion, shadow worlds – the meeting point of what we know as minimal, abstract, conceptual and absurd… “I remain fueled by the ironic and powered by BLACK.” The artist currently maintains his studio in Manhattan’s West Chelsea, although his greatest challenges occur outside of its walls. Getting his art out into the world is much more difficult than making it. Currently, he’s working on 13 pieces at the moment; each informing the next. “Maybe one or two will be successful” he says. Meanwhile the others “get reworked over and over again…” Included in these is four of the largest works he has ever made. Moving forward he’s planning for his solo show.
http://www.gabrieljshuldiner.com