“Making one of my paintings is like crossing a stream, one rock at a time. I know I want to get to the far bank but I don’t know exactly where I’ll land...[They] come into existence by virtue of an accumulation of choices, missteps, adjustments, accidents, rethinkings, and sometimes just plain luck - not unlike life, itself. While making these paintings, as in life, I often don’t know what’s around the corner.”

- Bill Schmidt

BALTIMORE, MD - C. Grimaldis is pleased to present Made (Up), a solo exhibition of recent paintings by Baltimore-based artist Bill Schmidt. These finely crafted works explore line, color and shape to create playful and intriguing abstractions that explore the possibilities of the surface plane. Made (Up) is his second solo exhibition with C. Grimaldis Gallery. 

Schmidt’s primary medium of gouache, a water-soluble paint, appears to be as much collaborator as material. He doesn’t begin his painting with a complete blueprint, but rather a form or structure in mind that is built upon during a process of action and reaction -- as the painting takes shape, responding to the surface itself, textures and relationships come together.  Finely constructed quality of line and light bring depth to abstracted planes, each piece imbued with playful conversations within their own composition as well as in the presence of each other. At times, similar forms are studied and re imagined in multiple paintings, altering its surroundings to explore how many characters it can take on. Schmidt embraces the limited structure of painting, finding and creating worlds within a flat rectangle. Equally, observations from the outside world are internalized and emerge in the work in the form of shapes, light, and color -- bringing a sense of place and familiarity to the abstract. 

Bill Schmidt (b. Trenton, NJ) received his BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA) and his MFA from the Hoffberger School of Painting at MICA (Baltimore, MD). He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council, the Semmes G. Walsh Award from Baker Artists Awards and was named Best in Show by the Bethesda Painting Awards in 2015. Schmidt has held various solo exhibitions including VisArts (Rockville, MD), C. Grimaldis Gallery (Baltimore, MD), and Peale House Gallery (Philadelphia, PA). Selected group exhibitions include Mono Practice (Baltimore, MD), Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, MD), Newark Museum (Newark, NJ), and Chateau de Rochefort-en-Terre (Rochefort-en-Terre, FR). In 1996, he became a Resident Artist at MICA’s Post-Baccalureate Program in Fine Art, a position he held until he was appointed the Interim Director in 2001.He continued as the program’s Director from 2006 to 2019.

Made (Up) will be on view at C. Grimaldis Gallery from March 7 through April 13, 2024. A reception will take place on Thursday, March 7th from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.