Marty Schnapf, born in 1977, lives and works in Los Angeles California, USA. Schnapf is celebrated for his multidisciplinary practice spanning painting, performance, video, installation and sculpture. Central to his creative and conceptual investigations is an exploration into the manifold complexities of human relationships both from a psychological and metaphysical perspective.

Schanpf’s paintings reveal themselves slowly. While distinctly human, the figures in his work lack clear contours and easy classification. They hover in a liminal state between reality and suspension responding contortedly to their shifting environment. Intertwined forms recalibrate before our eyes as expectation slides toward ambiguity and a sensual, interior human experience emerges. Schnapf’s paintings often begin in a flurry of gestural abstraction. He then draws directly on the canvas without studies, pictures or models. Unencumbered by any single art historical allegiance, he employs a wide range of rendering techniques. With each step he reacts to the one before. Ghosts of previous forms and figures hover just behind the surface.

Schnapf received his BFA from Wittenberg University in 1999 and was heavily influenced by his studies abroad in Cortona, Italy. He has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S and internationally, with recent solo exhibitions at Wilding Cran Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2018; MaRS Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2016; The Property, Los Angeles, CA 2015; and Permanently Closed, Los Angeles, CA 2015. He has featured in numerous performance festivals and group exhibitions, including at: Soulangh Cultural Park, Tainan, Taiwan; Vooruit Arts Center, Ghent, Belgium; Kaaistudios, Brussels, Belgium; 3rd Ward, New York, USA; Ballhaus Ost, Berlin, Germany; Caranza 25 Mexico City, Mexico; and The Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, Oregon, USA. He is the recipient of numerous grants including, most recently, a 2017 Rema Hort Mann Community Engagement Grant.

selected works