pete[at]schulteprojects[dot]com
@peteschulte13
Bio
Pete Schulte is an artist based in Birmingham, Alabama, He has presented recent solo exhibitions and installations at Mckenzie Fine Art, New York, New York; The Lamar Dodd School of Art at The University of Georgia; The Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas; Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson New York; Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia; and The Woskob Family Gallery at Penn State University. His work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Hyperallergic, Art in America, World Sculpture News, Burnaway, and The New Art Examiner have reviewed his work, among other publications. In 2017 Schulte was awarded the inaugural Southern Art Prize Fellowship for the state of Alabama. He has been awarded residencies at The Chinati Foundation (2019), Hambidge Center for Creative Arts (2016), Yaddo (2015), Altantic Center for the Arts (2010), Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (2010), and Threewalls (2010).
Pete Schulte received an MFA in painting and drawing from The University of Iowa in 2008. He is Professor of Art at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. In 2013 Schulte co-founded, with Amy Pleasant, The Fuel and Lumber Company curatorial initiative.
Statement
As it has been for the last twenty-eight years, the daily practice of drawing serves as the central axis for all facets of Pete Schulte’s work, which include the integration of works on paper, three-dimensional objects, site-specific wall drawings and installations. Whether working in two-dimensions or three - on paper, the wall, in space or with time - the works are deliberately quiet, slow, subtle and restrained. Color plays a crucial but often understated role in the development of the work. In this regard, Schulte is interested in exploring color in a limited manner to focus and heighten its impact. Each work is a singular entity with few relational elements. The intimate scale, sense of touch and attention to the nuanced and subtle aspects of the surface result in images that feel simultaneously familiar and mysterious. The materials utilized in the execution of a work appear to be less applied than at one with their substrate. Drawings may be descriptive or entirely non-objective, just as they may be organic or geometric – often within a single work. Binary descriptions that seek to limit and identify works as either representational or abstract no longer hold; Schulte’s engagement is with the tangible reality of the drawing space and its seemingly limitless potential as a zone of discovery.