Aurel Schmidt

The End, 2026
Colored pencil, acrylic, beer, wine & burn holes on paper
21 x 22 1/2 inches (53.34 x 57.15 cm)
Courtesy of the artist

Selected by The Drawing Center

Aurel Schmidt’s intricately detailed drawings are a reflection of her life in New York in that their individual parts pulled from the physical and emotional detritus of downtown. The drawings include objects such as flies, condoms, and cigarette packs and burns which are pieced together to form larger figures. Precious and personal, the work is exacting, highly detailed and teeming with overt intimacy. By using leftover garbage as the building blocks for her subjects, Schmidt’s work becomes a sort of memento mori—a reminder of our own vulnerability and mortality.

Her artwork is in the Whitney Museum permanent collection. Solo exhibitions include P.P.O.W & Deitch Projects and she has contributed to group exhibitions at the Drawing Center, New York; MACBA, Barcelona, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna; MACRO Museum, Rome; Saatchi Gallery, London & Deste Foundation, Greece. Brand Collaborations include SKIMS & SUPREME. Press includes Hypebeast, New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Vogue, Artforum, and inclusion in Phaidon Vitamin D2.