Tuesday Edition: Bastienne Schmidt

Laundry, Bridgehampton by Bastienne Schmidt

Laundry, Bridgehampton by Bastienne Schmidt
8"x10" ($20) | 11"x14" ($50) | 16"x20" ($200) | 24"x30" ($1000)

Dress Codes by Bastienne Schmidt
8"x10" ($20) | 11"x14" ($50) | 16"x20" ($200) | 24"x30" ($1000)

Bursting-with-anticipation Tuesday greetings, collector friends! Between next week's art fairs in Miami, all the amazing editions we've got teed up here at 20x200, plus another surprise or two in the works, things are absolutely cooking here at JBP. Sure it's all a bit much, but it's also exhilarating, especially when we're getting loads of positive feedback from collectors, the press and our various pals on the interwebs.

Speaking of anticipation, today's editions—Laundry, Bridgehampton and Dress Codes—were created by an artist that Sara and I have been looking forward to introducing you to for quite a while now: Bastienne Schmidt. Bastienne first popped up on my radar when I wandered into her Home Stills exhibition at Harper's Books early last spring. What struck me then and has stayed with me since is how unusual it is to come across an artist who's accomplished and distinctive in multiple media; to find someone who manages to create coherence across them all is rarer still. And yet, there it was hanging all around me in sleepy not-yet-summer East Hampton.

Several months later, Sara and I spent a really wonderful afternoon with Bastienne in her light-filled Bridgehampton studio, spending hours going through flat files and boxes filled with her work. And what a privilege it was to do so!

Bastienne is an artist whose muse is identity itself instead of an individual, and her practice explores its facets in endlessly inventive, insightful ways. She's pursuing a tricky path—the exploration of female identity, manifested in work that's colorful, beautiful and often ripe with narrative—but she does so with confidence and grace, and well, endlessly. I talk a lot about how hard it is to maintain a disciplined practice as an artist, in large part because I think it's important for viewers and collectors to understand that the making of great work is rarely the result of inspiration alone; it's work. After sifting through years of Bastienne's paintings, drawings and photographs, we realized there is so much more to this than we thought.

The art world initiated have been well-trained to be dismissive of the aesthetically pleasing, and it's an idea that's taken root in popular culture's perception of art, as well. All of which puts me in the awkward position of feeling compelled to tell you: Don't underestimate what is familiar and beautiful in this artist's body of work.

— Jen

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