Joey Schmidt (he/him) is a visual artist working in oil painting, printmaking, and film photography. His work explores queerness, memory, religion, and the search for home through impressionistic still lifes, self-portraits, and nature-based imagery.
Joey’s current in-progress body of work examines trauma, anxiety, and the lingering impact of a recent car crash. Through paintings, prints, and manufactured still lifes, he explores what it means to find light - love, even - within moments of rupture. He is especially interested in color theory, grief, and the way emotional truths surface through subtle shifts in tone, texture, and light.
He is the founder of Studio Buddy, a collective dedicated to building shared creative structure and access through experiences like model sessions, plein air painting, and community-centered art therapy. Joey lives and works in Kansas City.
Artist Statement:
I create work that lives between memory and sensation - where light flickers, forms soften, and emotion sits just under the surface. My practice spans oil painting, printmaking, and film photography, often circling themes of queerness, religion, nostalgia, and the shifting idea of home.
Much of my work focuses on floral landscapes, symbolic still lifes, and self-portraits. These forms act as containers for quiet griefs, subtle joys, and the emotions that defy easy language. I have a hard time being still - internally and externally. Rest for me feels uncomfortable. I think that's why I’m drawn to still life: it’s a space where I can practice presence, make peace with pause, and examine what remains when everything else is moving.
Lately, I’ve been making from the edge - chasing the persistent sensation that life is lived just before something unnamed. That uncertain threshold runs through my current body of work, which emerged after surviving a violent car crash. These new pieces process trauma, anxiety, and physical vulnerability while searching for the sacred in the scary. They ask: what does healing look like when it’s unfinished? How do we hold space for fear and love at once?
This in-progress work includes oil paintings, reduction prints, intimate portraits, and manufactured still lifes built from personal and symbolic objects. In one ongoing commission, I’ve layered an image of a friend’s late father into a still life composed from her home - a portrait of presence and absence, memory and warmth.
Color theory is foundational to my practice. I’m fascinated by how colors transform in relation to each other - how meaning shifts with proximity. I use these shifts to explore emotional resonance, especially within longing, loss, and quiet hope.
I believe making art can be an inclusive, connective act. Through Studio Buddy, I’m building space for community-centered creation - whether through shared work sessions, museum visits, or future art "therapy" gatherings. At its core, my practice is about finding tenderness in the difficult, making room for mystery, and learning to stay still even when it feels uncomfortable.