Carl Schwartz Retrospective on display at FGCU gallery

Carl Schwartz COURTESY PHOTO The Carl Schwartz Retrospective will open at the main gallery at Florida Gulf Coast University on Feb. 19 and run through March 22. The opening reception with the artist will be Thursday, Feb. 19, from 5 to 8 p.m.

Mr. Schwartz is a nationally recognized painter and print-maker as well as a member of the art program at FGCU.

The works selected for the exhibition take viewers from Fort Myers through the Everglades and Keys up to the rocky shorelines of the northeast and on back to Chicago.

"This exhibition reflects my response to my surroundings," Mr. Schwartz said. "If I lived on the beach, I painted beach scenes. If there was a wonderful, jumbled back of a marina or fix-it shop that was nearby, I created ordered, balanced compositions out of the great chaos that those places can present. This body of work is reflective of what has been my changing environment."

When asked, what does that say about the whimsical nature of his work "foods and nudes?" He laughed.

"I was teaching figure drawing and painting in Chicago in those days. Nudes really were part of my every day environment. And food, I love food. The two just seemed to go together. On a more serious note, I love the female form, its lushness, its softness and its sensuality."

Mr. Schwartz paints his environment, or rather an idealized form of his environment. His current body of work focuses on the tropical plants of Southwest Florida and in his own backyard. All Mr. Schwartz needs do for inspiration is step out his back door into the extraordinary garden, water garden, and koi pond paradise he has lovingly created. His students are often invited for off campus classes to work in his gardens. Walking through the gardens, one can understand the inspiration that struck Monet in his own gardens.