Landscape ReEnvisioned Artist Gallery
Charlotte Schmid-Maybach (b. 1964)
Land's End, 2024
Artist Statement
I engage with landscape using an interdisciplinary approach combining photography and textile. I sew on my prints with a free-motion sewing machine, like drawing with thread. Sewing is a way for me to get my hands into the photograph, and the colored metallic and cotton fibers change the paper into something dimensional and textural. The finished pieces feel like tapestry.
My intervention blurs the line between what's real in the photograph and what's beyond the picture. I'm drawn to themes of nature, myth, and legend, with a particular focus on forests and trees. The work is intricate and tactile and invites the viewer to take a closer look.
Most recently, I've been experimenting with printing photographs on silk. Layering the gauze over my sewn images on Kozo paper both deepens the pieces and makes them more ethereal. It's as if I've found a way to print a layer of fog and add it to my process, which already integrates photography and textile. This misty layer creates a space, elsewhere, that only exists in imagination or memory.
About the Artist
Charlotte Schmid-Maybach is a visual artist working with photography, textile, and assemblage to create large and small-scale photographic textile pieces. Originally from San Francisco, she earned her BA from UC Berkeley in South Asian civilization and her MA in Photojournalism from the University of Missouri, Columbia. Her background as an archaeological photographer in Pakistan and fifteen years as a newspaper photojournalist have informed her artwork. Maybach started studying with artist Tom Wudl in 2016 and made the transition to a full-time studio practice. She received the Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 photography award in 2021 and was exhibited in Klompching Gallery's FRESH 2023. Maybach is based in Los Angeles, and her work has been widely shown in galleries and museums. She is represented by Themes + Projects Gallery, San Francisco.