Thomas Schmidt becomes latest faculty artist in Mint Museum collection
A work by Associate Professor of Art Thomas Schmidt has recently been added to the collection of the Mint Museum of Art. “Sampled Spaces Mirror” can be seen in the museum’s “Recent Acquisitions” exhibition on the third floor of the uptown location through July 19.
Completed in 2020, “Sampled Spaces Mirror” is a large wall installation that consists of 248 porcelain modules cast with molds made from a large sheet of crumpled paper.
“Conceptually, the installation holds two opposing conditions in tension,” Schmidt wrote in an artist statement. “Industrial ceramics are often associated with control, prediction, repetition and systems of production, while the crumpled paper source suggests improvisation, accident and the visible record of the hand.”
“Sampled Spaces Mirror” was originally commissioned by Lauren Harkey for the Hodges Taylor Art Consultancy gallery in Charlotte. Harkey subsequently donated the work to the Mint Museum.
Schmidt joins three other current members of the Department of Art & Art History faculty with works in the Mint Museum’s collection: David Brodeur, Maja Godlewska and Marek Ranis. The museum also holds works by several former/retired faculty members, including Erik Anderson, Edwina Bringle, Maud Gatewood, Heather Hoover, Rod MacKillop, Tom Mason, Roy Strassberg and Martha Strawn.
Many of those pieces were on display last year, along with works by UNC Charlotte alumni, in an exhibition at the Mint’s uptown location that celebrated the Department of Art & Art History’s 60th anniversary.
Schmidt has exhibited his work at venues in the United States, Europe and Asia and has work in other museum collections, including the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, Italy; the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art in Sedalia, Missouri; and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
In 2024 he created and installed a large-scale work in the Duke Energy Plaza, the company’s headquarters in uptown Charlotte. The following year, the site-specific mural “Interwoven,” which he created with professor Erik Waterkotte, was installed at the Truist Center Plaza on Tryon Street. See more of his work at his website.