“Schönfeld” By Nick Szymanski

July 26, 2025 3:00- 5:00pm 

Nick Szymanski’s paintings offer us an opportunity to see—to pause time long enough not just to look, but to perceive. “The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something,” wrote John Ruskin. “To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, all in one.” And yet, our minds are wired to overlook. To avoid overwhelm, we compress, shortcut, and filter. We look, but often without seeing.

Vision itself is relational. We perceive through contrast; light against shadow, one hue beside another, memory against presence. What we see is shaped by what surrounds it, the time of day, the quality of light, even our desire to see. This impermanence unsettles the idea that perception is fixed. It becomes a question of presence: do we exist without relationship? Without purpose?

Nick’s work embraces that question. His paintings are unapologetically non-instrumental. In their refusal to function or explain, they open space for reverence, for lingering, for noticing and delight. The surface of each piece shifts with the viewer’s position, revealing subtle chromatic veils or tactile inconsistencies that vanish and return like thought. They resist capture. No image can substitute for your body in the room with them.

In this way, the work demands not just attention, but participation. The viewer becomes the mechanism through which the painting becomes visible. Each encounter is contingent, ephemeral and alive. What Nick offers is not an object but a moment—a glimpse of something true, purposeless, and profoundly human.

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