Andrew Schoultz: Blown to Bits

Andrew Schoultz’s first solo exhibition at Hosfelt Gallery transforms 7,000 square feet of gallery space with an installation of sculpture, paintings and works on paper that charts a new trajectory in his work.

Schoultz has built an international reputation for his monumental outdoor murals and high-impact, multi-dimensional installations constructed from a stylized, symbolic lexicon. His quirky vocabulary of motifs – armored battle horses, slave-powered war ships, parachutes, erupting volcanoes, trees with severed limbs, crumbling brick walls and the Masonic pyramid with its all-seeing eye – express themes that include cultural disintegration, environmental degradation, the waste of war, the oppression caused by greed and the dangers of governmental surveillance.

In this new body of work, Schoultz combines familiar symbols with various conventions of formalism he’s taken from art history to express his dystopian vision. Borders of concentric lines frame these works, representing containment and control while also referring to the margins of Persian miniature paintings and illuminated manuscripts or to modern geometric abstraction. But the frenetic accumulation of lines that make up Schoultz’s narrative imagery explode outward, demolishing the order of the rectilinear composition and shattering the tradition of the picture plane. The title of the show, Blown to Bits, alludes to the paradox of positive change – that destruction must precede the creation of something better.

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Schoultz became a professional skateboarder before moving to San Francisco in 1998. He initially immersed himself in the Mission School culture of graffiti and street art, then transitioned to exhibitions in museums and galleries in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and internationally. This year, evicted from his studio in the Mission, he relocated to Los Angeles with his family. Recent outdoor murals have been painted in Miami, Toronto, Los Angeles, and Honolulu. In 2013 Schoultz transformed the entire Monterey Art Museum with site-specific installations and an outdoor mural. His work is in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, the Palm Springs Art Museum and the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation.