My name is Jonathan Schuit and I was born in 1973. After growing up in Germany and becoming a carpenter I moved to the Netherlands to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht. During my studies I occasionally picked up the brushes to paint.
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In my head there have always been this ongoing stream of images, a phenomenon that’s
called ‘Kopfkino’ in German – a cinema in the head.
As long as I can remember this projector in my head is running, containing associations, daydreams, stories and also more complex translations of psychological processes. Besides working as a designer in Amsterdam imaginary sceneries, landscapes and objects keep on arising in my mind, wanting a way out.
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I am a self-taught painter and I am fascinated by the isolated, still moments of life. The view of the passerby who’s watching from a distance feels most familiar to me. Maybe also through my multinational & -lingual family background i learned how to observe and get an insight on different perspectives.
Most of my paintings are set in the middle of anonymous silent street and illuminated by isolated street lights and in the magic blue of the twilight hour, my favourite moment of the day. Desolated places and sceneries, cut from time, half lit, never frightened me.
Instead, they awaken a strange sort of beauty and happiness.
To me they are an invitation for my mind to wander and daydream. That’s exactly what i try to achieve in my paintings: I like to create scenes and imply stories in the observers mind. I would like my paintings to be like silhouettes, you can see the contours but you still have the freedom to make up your own story.
Also i am interested in what we experience when we feel the space around us during a short daydream, out of time, in a moment where we are alone and maybe the closest to what we really feel.
To capture that is a rare experience, but when it happens, especially in painting, it can evoke a great and tender intimacy with oneself.
jonathanschuit.com 