(970) 927-9668
Paula Schuette Kraemer creates drypoint monoprints and monotypes that use metaphors to explore life’s ups and downs. Schuette Kraemer was born in 1948, and studied art history at Vassar College and completed her undergraduate work in fine art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She went on to receive her Master’s Degree in Fine Art from the University of Wisconsin where she studied both printmaking and ceramics with Warrington Colescott and Bruce Breckenridge. Paula Schuette Kraemer lives and works in both Madison, WI and Silverthorne, CO, where she draws her inspirations.
After her first husband died when she was just 38 years old, Schuette Kraemer had to step back into the world, and her artwork played a transformative role in the process. Her printing press, aptly named “The Open Gate” was a symbol of her journey, representing the “open gate” she needed to step through to see what was on the other side.
The Wisconsin- and Colorado-based artist reflects her own life experiences facing grief and life’s uncertainty while celebrating the simple but momentous joys of life: love of one’s pets, every day gifts, interactions with nature, and the calm within a hectic world. It is the intent of the artist that her work be viewed both as personal and universal comments on life. Paula tends to explore a theme for one or two years—wildlife at night, constellations, butterflies, ‘family portraits,’ moments around a campfire, anxiety in the form of butterflies—then moves on as her life progresses and new images shift to the surface. It is not her desire to be known for any one specific theme, but rather to use her artistic ability to portray life’s joyous and difficult experiences through metaphor.
The works of Schuette-Kraemer are predominantly drypoint monoprints and monotypes, occasionally working with oil stick on mylar. Her expressive style is reflected in the immediacy and spontaneity of drawing directly into a copper plate using a steel etching needle. During the printing process, ink is intentionally left on the plate so that she may freely wipe, smear and draw into that residual ink, qualifying these artworks as drypoint monoprints and monotypes. The prints within each edition vary, yet the image portrayed, the color, and the composition are constant within each edition. Because so much creativity and time is involved in the actual printing process, only small editions of twenty or fewer are produced.
The artist prints her work in her printing studio, “Open Gate Press,” and her works have been featured in publications such as Western Art & Architecture (2020), Southwest Art Magazine (2018), and Art in Print (2014, 2014, 2015), and selected for permanent collections such as the Waterloo Museum of Art (Waterloo, IA), Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (Madison, WI), Madison Newspapers (Madison, WI), and more. Her work has been exhibited nation-wide, including six consecutive years at the Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale (Denver, CO), Attleboro Arts Museum (Attleboro, MA), Elvehjem Museum of Art (Madison, WI), a solo exhibit at the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters (Madison, WI), Waterloo Museum of Art (Waterloo, IA), Rahr West Art Museum (Manitowac, WI), and the Bergstrom Museum (Neenah, WI).
