Oskar Schmidt

Oskar Schmidt’s photographs are like intimate conversations. Various figures, - women and young girls, as well as objects such as a globe or a piece of ceramics, – are placed in sober, sparsely furnished rooms with wooden floors, white light or a nostalgic, torn tapestry. Functioning both as portraits and interiors, the photographs are staged scenarios, inspired by the catalogue of art history, most notably the Dutch baroque painter Jan Vermeer’s alluring depictions of women sculpted in window light, going about their household duties, and Balthus’s paintings of young girls. The emphasis on the bodies’ angles and postures makes Schmidt’s human figures seem like delicate silhouettes or even objects.