Jeffrey Schrier

I am a visual artist producing assemblage, sculpture, painting and drawing for my studio, foundry and edition works.  I want my art to trigger observers and participants to think about environmental, social, historical and aesthetic issues while viewing art that reflects enchantment.  To that end, I often use materials not associated with art, in a process of transformation.  For example, in the spring of 2010, as artist-in-residence in Mineola, NY, I led 200 students in creating four giant jellyfish assemblage works made from 5,000 water bottles they had collected for our work together.  For my most current series of large scale riverworks paintings, I mix river clay into my pigments and allow the paintings to be impacted by weather.  Additionally, I am intent on creating art that involves community participation, interaction and community building.  In 2009-10, I was artist-in-residence for schools in Houston, San Diego and Orange County, CA, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta, New Jersey, Long Island and Westchester.  My most well-known ongoing work, WINGS of WITNESS has involved more than 50,000 students from 23 states in recycling 6 tons of soda can tabs into a massive butterfly assemblage which is a Holocaust memorial that has been installed at eight sites across the USA.  I find that working with communities consistently renews my visionary process even in my solo work.  Many of my workshops focus on the environment, recycling and teaching tolerance.  As an internationally recognized artist, my exhibition credits include the Katonah Museum of Art in NY and Yeshiva University.

Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, classic academy training in painting, drawing, printmaking and design.  Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles and CALARTS, BFA, experimental illustration and painting.  Continuing education: Art Students League, NYC; New School, NYC, Psychology; SUNY Purchase, NY, Judaic Studies.

Through ArtsWestchester, Jeffrey Schrier has worked with adults at Phelps ATS, Ossining, White Plains Hospital CDT and RPC Peekskill to transform ordinary materials into art by reconfiguring water bottles through cutting with scissors, applying designs and assembling sculpture.  He has also taught sixth graders at Casimir Pulaski School and ninth through twelfth graders at Saunders Trades and Technical High School and Riverside High School in Yonkers.