Dena Schutzer

Interviews by Brainard Carey

phot of the artist by Ralph Gabriner

Dena Schutzer in her fifth solo show at Bowery Gallery in New York City titled “Agitation and Retreat”, describes the work saying, “Together, these oil paintings are a chronicle of observed moments in public and private spaces.” Schutzer’s imagery reflects this wide-open approach—what has caught her eye ranges from a view of a New York street in the giant shadows of looming new skyscrapers, to an intimate scene of the artist’s elderly mother taking a bath. Intuiting a kind of drama in these elements of direct perception provides what Schutzer calls the “initial jolt” that impels her to respond in paint.

For Schutzer this mysterious process—the joy and struggle of proceeding from that first sensation to a new, composed reality on the canvas–has everything to do with her pleasure in the possibilities of paint itself. Her loose but decisive brushwork and bold color tensions and harmonies—acid greens, clashing blues, pervasive violets—don’t let go of the viewer until one has taken in all the oppositions, juxtapositions, parallels from which her brushstroke emerges, still present as a brushstroke, but also, finally, as an essential part of a new and highly personal image.

Dena Schutzer has had 5 solo shows with the Bowery Gallery in NYC, and has been in group shows at The Painting Center-NYC, Westbeth-NYC, Washington Art Association-CT, Kingsborough College-Brooklyn, Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition-BWAC, Hudson Park Library-NYC, Romano Gallery-NJ, Irvington Library, Yonkers Riverfront Library, TC Columbia U- Macy Gallery. She taught painting and was head of the art department at the Abraham Joshua Heschel High School in NYC for 21 years, has been a visiting teaching artist at schools throughout Westchester County and NYC. She illustrated six children’s books for Simon and Schuster, Knopf, and Scholastic among others, and her editorial illustrations have been published in newspapers and magazines including The NY Times, The New Yorker and NY Newsday.

Schutzer attended Skowhegan, NY Studio School, BFA from Suny at Purchase, MFA (in Film) from Yale University, MFA in Art Ed at Columbia University.

“Buildings, Yellow Cloud”, oil on canvas, 16”x12”, 2025

“Arm Outstretched”, oil on canvas, 12”x16”, 2023

“Four Men Working”, oil on canvas, 18”x20”, 2024