Breathe

Hannah Schutzengel

Interview by C. VanWinkle
January 5, 2025

Would you please describe the prompt you responded to? What was it?

I got what I'm assuming is a digital collage; it’s certainly collaged from different photos. There's a person's head with his eyes closed in the center of the frame, and he has almost a halo radiating out from his head. The halo is made of alternating stripes of stars and little bits of paper that have been written on. The collage has text over it that says at the top, “Inhale Exhale,” and then at the bottom, “The New West End Show Brought To You By Anxiety.”

What was your first impression of it?

I know I shouldn't have been surprised because I knew I would get something unexpected. But somehow, I was still surprised when I opened the email and saw it. I was really struck by what I thought was a sort of distance in the image, which seemed very calming to me looking at it. There's this open sky in it and there’s stars, and flowers at the bottom. The image seems very mellow in feeling, but then that text was so sardonic in contrast to it that I laughed when I read it. I felt like the text added this whole second layer of meaning. So I didn't know when I looked at it how I would incorporate all of that, or which elements of that I would respond to in my own piece.

How did you get started on your own piece? What happened next?

I went to my studio and thought about what medium I wanted to use. Because of the two-week time frame, I figured I'd better make something on paper. That's a little faster for me to do than other methods. So I got a big sheet of paper and all the different paints and pencils and Sharpies and everything, just to have it all out in front of me and decide what I would do. I started with painting and some pencil. I tried to pull from the colors in the prompt and have that be the starting place.

I’ve seen some of your other works and I noticed that sometimes you work with really vibrant colors and sometimes you don't.

Yeah, it really varies for me what type of color I use. For this, color was a good entry point for me since I work abstractly in general. Responding to an image that is not as abstract, which does have the representation of a person and recognizable flowers and clouds, I thought the color would be a good place to start to move it into my realm while keeping it connected to the prompt.

Oh sure. What led you to this imagery, these lines and shapes?

I was thinking about the text “Inhale Exhale” and how that appeared. I thought about those radiating lines coming out from this person's head as maybe a halo, or maybe a visual representation of that breath, coming in and going out, the alternating pattern or rhythm that breath makes. I wanted to work with that sort of in-and-out feeling, expansion and contraction. The first couple of layers of my painting had a grid laid out that had that pattern element to it. And then I washed over it with this very loose, thin paint, making some circle shapes that overlapped with each other.

Once I got past that first layer, I found myself really stuck and couldn't figure out what to do with it. That's how I wound up tearing it up and having the layers that wound up in the final piece. I was trying to figure out what was and wasn't usable, and was covering up pieces, and figured, “I don't like that part. Can I work without it?” It started out as, you know, 25 inches on a side, and that cut it way down to 9.

Oh, wow! I think it's so healthy to feel okay with destruction as part of the creation process.

It’s necessary sometimes! Returning to the prompt, I thought it needed both the expansiveness

of breathing and something to tie it back down again. Tearing off pieces and sewing through it

with the thread worked that way for me.

And how big do you normally work?

In general, my paintings are very small – they're about 6 inches. This work is a little bit larger, around 9 inches, but still pretty small.

What are all the materials that you ended up using here? 

There's acrylic paint, pencil, some Flashe paint, which is like a vinyl paint, and thread.

Right on. I mix my media too and just use whatever is within reach.

Yeah, exactly. I have to look back at it and try to remember, in order to figure out what’s in any given piece I make. [laughs] 

You mentioned the timeframe. We give everybody two weeks, even though that can be a lot or a little depending on that the contributor does. How long do you typically spend on a piece in the different media you work with?

For a work on paper like this, two weeks is plenty for me. Sometimes it'll be even much faster than that. I'll do drawings in just one session. But for most of my work, it'll be in the studio marinating for months. I might work on it a little bit this week and then set it to the side and just look at it for a few weeks before I actually do the next thing to it. And then on and on and on, as long as it takes. So it varies a lot. Sometimes it might come together in two weeks, but sometimes it might be six months in the studio before it’s actually finished.

How did you like working from a prompt? Is that something you do very much in your practice?

Not very often these days, but I have done similar things with friends. Usually what I've done is pass the same artwork back and forth, and each person takes turns working on it. That's always been very fun and brings out different things than I ever expect.

I can imagine! What happens to the final piece? Whose house does it stay in?

We have to pick! I have some, my friend has some…

Of course. What's do you have any goals or plans for what's next for you? Are you going to keep doing what you’re doing, or do you have that thing you haven't done yet?

As always, a little of both. I think I will continue making things as I am, but I do have a long list of things that I would like to learn. I want to learn to weave one day, I want to learn some woodworking, all kinds of things that I would love to figure out and then bring into the studio.

There's just so much to learn. Now that you're on this side of our process, what's your advice to a new person getting their prompt today?

Be open about it. Try different things. There doesn't have to be any pressure about it, it's a fun project to do. When I was stuck, I found it really helpful to look back to the prompt, to try and get over that stuck feeling by just going back to the place I started. I looked back at the shapes, and the colors. I thought about the feelings that I had when I looked at the prompt and tried to return that to the work I was making.

That's great. It's not that there's a right or wrong way to do this, but that's the right way to do this. If you're stuck, go back to the prompt.

That’s what it’s there for, right? To inspire!

True!

Call Number: B119VA | B120VA.scBre

​​Hannah Schutzengel is an artist living and working in Durham, North Carolina. She received her B.A. from Swarthmore College in 2011, and M.F.A. from Hunter College in 2019. Schutzengel’s paintings explore the surface as a record of action: holding the imprint of an impressed thread, a brushstroke, a cut, or a fold. Through this process, she emphasizes the qualities of attention, mindful action, and care. www.hannahschutzengel.com