Bastienne Schmidt
Bridgehampton, NY
BASTIENNE SCHMIDT
Multi-media artist Bastienne Schmidt was born in Munich, Germany and raised in Greece. She attended Art College in Perugia, Italy. Influenced by her father, an archaeologist, her work in photography, painting, and drawing attempts to understand, map and organize systems. Her work is infused with ancient and modern cultures she has interacted with through her travels. For the profile produced by The Artist Profile Archive, Schmidt was interviewed in her Bridgehampton, NY studio. Schmidt’s work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the International Center of Photography, the Brooklyn Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
Bastienne Schmidt - 09:17
“I was born in Germany, but I grew up in Greece. My father was an archeologist, he collected things. He put together shards of terracotta. And this has really been embedded in my mind. Growing up in Greece meant working with poor materials. I watched the villagers — how they always salvaged something. So what I did with my own work is I introduced these elements — sticks from the garden, sometimes incense sticks, cotton fabric or sometimes vintage fabric that I collect. ”
“I do a lot of research. It takes a while to find something that fits your purpose but also at the same time, I keep drawing my own things. So it’s sometimes the growing together of my own imagination and also historical research. ”
