Pears with Mexican Lantern is from a series of still lifes inspired by a street scene that Schnitzius encountered during an "art trip" to Mexico. "The colors in Mexico were so beautiful," Schnitzius says, "with a lot of layering and texturing. In this series I have a lot of luscious blacks in the background. These blacks have lots of color in them. I always put the bright color on the canvas first, before the dark colors, so that the darks are not flat." In each of the paintings in her series, Schnitzius used Mexican objects that she brought home from her trip. "There is usually something old in my paintings," she says. Creating these series of paintings is very important to Schnitzius. "I want to hang a show that goes together."

[artist biography by Sydney Pettus; artist photograph by Christina Joseph]