I see the mycelium as the Earth's natural Internet, a consciousness with which we might be able to communicate[...]Because these externalized neurological nets sense any impression upon them, from footsteps to falling tree branches, they could relay enormous amounts of data regarding the movements of all organisms through the landscape.

― Paul Stamets

EUROPA is pleased to present The Big Empty, an exhibition of new paintings from Los Angeles-based artist Noah Schneiderman. In his first solo show in New York, Schneiderman paints large-scale abstract works which activate the fuzzy boundary between matter and mind, and between nature and spirit.

These canvases are first exposed to various dye materials found in the natural world, both on the earth's surface and within its subterranean realms: madder root, logwood, iron, copper, fustic. The fabric, undergoing its first transformation in the dye pots, emerges bearing patterns – jagged, sigmoid, fractal – a result of tying, folding, and free-form crumpling that imprints a memory from the plant matter from which the color is derived. Schneiderman sets up the channels for communication here: botanicals, roots, and earth all call out to signal their various histories. Finally, the scraps of dyed canvas are sewn together to create a greater whole, and the surfaces on which Schneiderman begins to apply paint. As in a game of Cadavre Exquis, the synchronous connections and unexpected compositions serve as a point of departure for each painting.

A path of discovery is charted out on these charged surfaces through the medium of oil. In a process that mirrors the stages of alchemy, there is a movement from the hypogean to the heavens, from darkness to light, present in each of the canvases, which with their many branching and spindling forms pay tribute to the materials which produced them. Like a crystal that forms rapidly in its final growth, the layered application of oil paint is the stage for the pigmented apparitions to shape into their final incarnation.

The Magician, which takes its name from the card found in the Major Arcana of the Rider-Waite tarot, represents the materialization of thought and the unconscious realm. A figure who draws energy from the heavens to the earth, and from the earth up to the heavens. In the painting, mercurial lines evocative of electrical currents and lightning (themselves couriers of energy between ground and ether) dart and swirl around shades of a phantom form in the center who appears to command them. Playing the Bones, in the tradition of the memento mori, nods playfully toward the finitude of our existence as material beings, and takes the circle as its central motif, evoking egg cells, spermatozoa, eye sockets, suns, and galaxies. Visitor Map is a mirage of fungal spores and tendrils floating into the abyss of space, and the dusky grey nebulas hone in on a concentric, rather than linear, version of time. The Miraculous Draft of Fishes refers to the miracle recorded in the Gospel of John, an image depicted by painters since the Renaissance. In Schneiderman's version, forms recognizable as fishing nets scatter the surface, but are obstructed, bisected, and abstracted by other patterns similarly “lifted” from the initial dyeing phase, as fish from the sea. As in David Lynch's metaphor for creative ideation, deep water here functions as a symbol of material both unconscious in the mind of the artist, and latent in the natural world.

Schneiderman approaches each canvas from a state of emptiness, of curiosity and unknowing. In this spirit, no one of Schneiderman's paintings can be “known”, i.e. reduced to what is recognizable in its figurations. Meaning does not inhere in matter, but rather arises pareidolically in the mind of whatever apprehends it, whether human or plant. While the rectilinear edges of the canvases are fixed, within them, nothing is certain. This dynamism found in both process and form suggests the paintings may continue to evolve as a living organism does: a ribcage becomes light dancing on a body of water, positive and negative space interchange, the Sun becomes a neural network. Echoing the rhythms of nature, the earthly materials become animate and ascend to celestial ends.

Noah Schneiderman (b.1996) was born in Stewardson, IL, and lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Embracing the Zen concept of beginner's mind—an approach that values openness, curiosity, and freedom from preconception, Schneiderman starts each work without a plan, opting for a call and response approach that allows intuition to guide the process and for each painting to evolve organically. This methods reflects Noah's investigation and interest in philosophy, mysticism, and the nature of human consciousness and experience.

Schneiderman has previously had solo and duo exhibitions at Solito, in Naples, Italy; Gene Gallery in Shanghai, China; and The Valley in Taos, NM. He has also shown internationally at Kutlesa in Switzerland, Soho Revue in London, and Cabin Berlin in Berlin, Germany. Other group shows stateside include Arcadia and Elsewhere, James Cohan, NY; Unseen Orchestra, Make Room LA; and New American Paintings Review at Steven Zevitas in Boston, MA. Schneiderman has been featured in Artsy as one of 10 Artists to discover, New American Paintings, issue 156, Art Maze, and Graphite Journal. Schneiderman's work was also shown in Miami at the NADA fair with EUROPA. Past residencies include Jana Koya, in Landers, CA and a forthcoming residency with La BiBi in Mallorca, Spain.