MC Design Professor Adrienne Schwarte explores the beauty of ‘solitude’ in latest exhibit
Aug. 22, 2022
As far back as she can remember, Adrienne Schwarte has envisioned grand spaces devoid of people.
The Pantheon. The Colosseum. St. Peter’s Basilica. In her travels, the Maryville College professor of design has taken in the historic opulence of those and similar structures, seeing them as they might have been upon completion: pristine, reverent and empty.
“For me, I have always been one who has been very interested in spaces,” said Schwarte, whose exhibit, “solitude.,” is on display in the Blackberry Farm and William “Ed” Harmon galleries of Maryville College’s Clayton Center for the Arts through Aug. 30.
“A lot of photographers gravitate toward doing portrait work or working with people, including a lot of students I direct in portrait photography. I even have some who graduate and are working almost exclusively in that area,” she added. “I was always someone who preferred the experience of spaces, because I felt they didn’t get enough credit for the beauty they provide. I was always interested in taking spaces we don’t pay enough attention to and focusing on them, rather than the people in those spaces.”
Schwarte, who also coordinates the Sustainability Studies minor at MC, is the daughter and granddaughter of craftswomen who worked in needlepoint and embroidery, and the assemblage of cloth and thread into creative works always fascinated her, she said. It wasn’t until college, however, that she found her calling, she said.
“I started off as a journalism major, and one of the assignments was to go out, meet a business owner and interview them,” she said. “I realized I was too nervous to even try and do that, and if that was the easiest task as a journalist, maybe it wasn’t for me. My advisor came to me and said, ‘There’s this new field that integrates art and communication called graphic design. I’m going to put you in an art history class and an introductory drawing and design class, and if you don’t like it, it’s not for you.’ Well, within two weeks, I knew I was in the right place.”
Schwarte obtained her bachelor’s in Communication and Art from Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa, and a master’s in Multimedia Design from the University of Minnesota. She also holds a professional certificate in Campus Sustainability Leadership from the Institute for Global Sustainability from the University of Vermont. She’s worked as a graphic designer, photographer and communications assistant for a number of businesses and philanthropic and professional organizations, and at Maryville College, she teaches numerous design and sustainability courses, as well as other art-related classes.
For her own work — particularly “solitude.” — she was inspired by German photographer Candida Höfer, whose photographs of architectural interiors, devoid of human subjects, spoke to Schwarte.
“You can see the patterns, the shapes, the colors. All of those things stand out at you,” she said. “In this particular collection, I was going to spaces that have that level of height or gravitas and thinking about elements of connection — removing the individual and making the spaces the ‘person.’ I attempt to represent the expansiveness of these spaces to present them as full, not empty; lively, not lifeless; fertile, not barren. They may be designed ‘for’ people, but they can exist all on their own exquisitely without them.”
Originally scheduled to be exhibited in August 2020 after her 2019 trip to Italy, Vatican City and the Republic of San Marino, “solitude.” (subtitled “a photographic exhibition of the ‘personhood’ of spaces”) was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The exhibit consists of 14 images that are for sale, a portion of the proceeds from which will be donated to the nonprofit organization Razom for Ukraine, which focuses on providing “critical humanitarian war relief and recovery.”A reception for Schwarte will take place at 6 p.m. Aug. 26 in the gallery. For more information, visit her website at www.adrienneschwarte.com.
