Linda Friedman Schmidt "Beneath the Surface"

Linda Friedman Schmidt is a German-born American artist known for her emotional narrative portraits created from discarded clothing. She was born stateless in a displaced persons camp, the first child of Holocaust survivors who discouraged her interest in art. Her artwork depicts a reality informed by social, political, and feminist issues as well as a traumatic family history. Through a process of unmaking and remaking, she explores the potential of art to mend, transform, and heal the self and society. Her earlier artworks continue to endure today as they address inequality, violence against women, and the general sense of unease and vulnerability that has been heightened by the pandemic. Her artwork has been exhibited extensively in the USA in group shows at venues such as the American Folk Art Museum, Allentown Art Museum, Montclair Art Museum, Morris Museum, and many others. It has been selected for exhibition by prestigious curators such as Judy Chicago, Faith Ringgold, and renowned art critic Donald Kuspit. Her work has been shown internationally in Japan, Portugal, and Argentina, and has been reviewed in Hyperallergic. In 2020-2021, her work was shown in five virtual international juried exhibitions, was exhibited at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles and at Monmouth University, and was published in Living Artists Magazine.