Thomas W. Schaller, Close to Home, watercolor, 22 x 15.
Nearly everyone has been looking for ways to find a “new normal” in their lives during the coronavirus pandemic, and Thomas W. Schaller has found himself doing the same. In ordinary times, the artist’s schedule is packed with teaching engagements near and far, including workshops in Italy and France. These days, with that travel agenda on hold, Schaller has been reassessing and realigning his priorities, and that’s what his winning entry is all about. “It’s about trying to look at the world around you in a way you haven’t before,” he says.
CLOSE TO HOME depicts a quiet alley just steps away from Schaller’s home in Venice, CA. “I’ve walked by the view honestly 10,000 times, and it never occurred to me to paint it,” he says. That is, until the pandemic arrived. Suddenly, here was a dynamic scene full of striking opposites: sunlight and shadow, rigid utility poles and flowing power lines, historic and modern architecture. And so, the watercolorist captured the scene, first as a plein-air sketch and then as a larger studio piece. “What I found compelling was the collision of shapes, colors, and textures,” he explains. “[I wanted] to see if I could orchestrate it into something cohesive, where all these disparate parts talk to each other and belong together.”
Since transitioning to a fine-art career a decade ago, the former architect has relaxed his once-academic approach to painting, and he routinely embraces imagination in his process. As an artist, he says, “You can redesign your world any way you want. I think it’s the artist’s job to reinterpret the world around us and not just duplicate it.” Find Schaller’s work at www.thomasschaller.com.
This story appeared in the December 2020/January 2021 issue of Southwest Art magazine.