Carson Schmitt

My work plays on viewers’ assumptions around perspective, scale, and light in two-dimensional space. Working primarily in oil paint, I create convincingly rendered scenes that act as windows into an unsettling world that fits just beside our own. These liminal spaces explore the concepts of time, identity, and the nature of reality. By arranging objects using the conventions of perspective, I warp compositions and shift the experience of their space. Using a combination of symbolism and naturalism, my work pulls the viewer into a dreamlike world where reality is bent out of shape, and the rules of perspective, scale, and light are twisted into new forms. I invite viewers to explore and examine these unusual spaces, and hope that in doing so they will find parts of themselves reflected back from the canvas.