Artist duo ChanSchatz brings abstract painting into the Information Age

Since meeting at UC Berkeley, Eric Chan and Heather Schatz have operated as a single creative entity, making art jointly under the name ChanSchatz. The fruit of their union is a makeover of abstract painting that’s as intellectually challenging as it is visually seductive. The pair starts with hand-drawn designs, where are transferred to a computer and maintained in an ever-expanding database. Next, ChanSchatz invite friends and fellow art-worlders to their Meatpacking District studio to pick colors and forms from the database; the artists then transform these into quasi psychedelic abstract compositions, which assume a variety of forms: paintings, sculptures, and installations. Through this hybrid process, ChanSchatz fuse gestural drawing and production methods, using techniques more commonly associated with information management and the marketing of corporate brands than with the creation of fine art. Art historian and critic Margaret Sundell met with the pair in their studio to discuss their upcoming exhibition, Augmentation. SOURCE: SEPTEMBER 11-18, 2003 | TIME OUT NEW YORK  87, Tag teaml By Margaret Sundell