Guy Hepner Gallery

David Schmitt A Fragile Balance For Sale

David Schmitt
David Schmitt - A Fragile Balance, 2025, Mixed media on canvas

A Fragile Balance, 2025

Mixed media on canvas

31 1/2 x 39 3/8 in 80 x 100 cm

About this work

David Schmitt's "A Fragile Balance" presents a compelling study in tension and vulnerability, rendered with the artist's characteristic attention to the human form as a vessel for psychological complexity. The composition centers on a figure caught in a moment of precarious equilibrium, the body positioned in a way that suggests both grace and imminent collapse. Schmitt's mixed media approach layers paint with textural elements that create depth and tactile richness across the canvas, allowing certain passages to emerge with photographic clarity while others dissolve into atmospheric abstraction. The palette moves between muted earth tones and sudden punctuations of color that draw the eye across the surface, creating visual pathways that mirror the work's thematic concerns with stability and its opposite. There is an intimacy here, a sense that we are witnessing something private—a struggle held in suspension, neither resolved nor abandoned. The figure's relationship to the surrounding space feels charged, the negative areas pressing inward as much as the form pushes outward against them. Within Schmitt's broader practice, this work demonstrates his ongoing exploration of the body as both physical presence and emotional landscape. He belongs to a generation of figurative painters who have absorbed the lessons of both classical technique and contemporary conceptualism, finding new resonance in the painted figure without nostalgia or irony. The emotional register is contemplative rather than dramatic, inviting extended looking and quiet recognition of our shared human fragility. This work would be a significant addition to any collection focused on contemporary figuration at its most psychologically nuanced.

Price on Application

Auction History

Riders halt at a cottage · David Schmitt · Nagel Auktionen · 2006-12 · $1,556

Le campement · David Schmitt · Kohn · 1998-05 · $22,375

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About the Screenprints Series

David Schmitt Paintings

Exploring the Boundaries of Contemporary Figurative Art

David Schmitt has emerged as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary figurative painting, crafting works that navigate the delicate territory between the familiar and the uncanny. His paintings invite viewers into worlds where human experience intersects with the surreal, where emotional truths are rendered through imagery that defies conventional interpretation while remaining deeply accessible. At Guy Hepner, we are proud to present an exceptional collection of David Schmitt paintings, offering collectors the opportunity to acquire works by an artist whose vision continues to reshape the landscape of contemporary figurative art.

A Distinctive Visual Language

What distinguishes David Schmitt from his contemporaries is his remarkable ability to translate psychological complexity into visual narrative. His paintings do not merely depict figures; they animate interior states, giving form to the intangible aspects of human consciousness. Each canvas becomes a stage where dreams, anxieties, aspirations, and vulnerabilities perform in concert, creating compositions that resonate on both visceral and intellectual levels.

Schmitt's technical mastery serves his conceptual ambitions with precision. His brushwork moves fluidly between meticulous detail and expressive gesture, allowing him to construct images that feel simultaneously grounded and ethereal. Color in his work operates as an emotional architecture, building atmospheres that envelop his subjects and guide the viewer's psychological engagement with each piece.

Signature Works

The Ant That Carried A Human exemplifies Schmitt's capacity for profound metaphorical statement. This striking work inverts expectations of scale and power, presenting an image that speaks to perseverance, the weight of existence, and the extraordinary strength found in seemingly insignificant beings. The painting challenges viewers to reconsider their assumptions about burden and capability, about who carries whom through life's journey.

In Spotted Horse, Schmitt demonstrates his facility with animal imagery as a vehicle for exploring themes of freedom, wildness, and the marks that experience leaves upon us. The spotted pattern becomes a meditation on individuality and the beautiful irregularities that define authentic existence. The work possesses a primal energy that connects viewers to something ancient and untamed within themselves.

I Need Dreams stands as perhaps the most intimate declaration in Schmitt's oeuvre. This painting articulates the fundamental human hunger for imagination, for spaces beyond the constraints of waking reality. It is a work that validates the necessity of inner life, of fantasy, of the nocturnal journeys that restore and inspire us.

Do Not Panic addresses the contemporary condition with knowing compassion. In an era defined by constant alarm and overwhelming information, this painting offers both acknowledgment of our collective anxiety and a steadying presence. Schmitt captures the moment of choice between surrender to fear and the maintenance of composure.

The remarkable A Fragile Balance depicts the precarious equilibrium that characterizes so much of human experience. Schmitt renders visible the invisible tightrope we walk between competing demands, between stability and collapse, between holding together and falling apart. It is a work of profound empathy for the human condition.

Clarity Found In Confusion presents a paradox that resonates deeply in our current moment. Schmitt suggests that understanding does not always emerge from order, that sometimes wisdom arrives precisely when we surrender to uncertainty. The painting embodies this contradiction beautifully, offering visual resolution within compositional complexity.

Weird. embraces the strange with unapologetic directness. This work celebrates the outsider, the unconventional, the aspects of self and world that resist easy categorization. Schmitt's punctuation of the title—that decisive period—transforms an adjective into a declaration of identity.

The Chase captures the eternal pursuit that drives human endeavor, whether that pursuit involves desire, meaning, survival, or transcendence. There is movement and urgency in this work, the sense of something perpetually sought, perhaps perpetually elusive.

Her Intuition explores feminine knowing, the wisdom that operates beyond rational calculation. Schmitt approaches this subject with reverence, acknowledging ways of understanding that cannot be measured yet prove invaluable.

One Step Closer embodies the incremental nature of progress, the small advances that constitute meaningful change. It is a painting of hope rendered without sentimentality, acknowledging both how far one must travel and the significance of each forward movement.

Critical Context and Collectibility

David Schmitt's work arrives at a moment when figurative painting has reclaimed its position at the center of contemporary art discourse. After decades during which conceptual and abstract practices dominated institutional attention, collectors and critics alike have renewed their appreciation for artists who engage directly with the human form and human experience. Schmitt's paintings respond to this moment while transcending mere trend, offering work that will maintain its power and relevance regardless of shifting art world fashions.

The growing recognition of Schmitt's significance has naturally increased collector interest in his paintings. His work appears in distinguished private collections internationally, and his presence in the secondary market continues to strengthen. For collectors seeking to acquire work by artists whose reputations are ascending but whose prices have not yet reached the heights commanded by more established names, David Schmitt represents a compelling opportunity.

Acquire Work by David Schmitt

Guy Hepner is pleased to assist collectors in acquiring paintings by David Schmitt. Our team possesses extensive knowledge of the artist's work and can provide guidance on available pieces, pricing, and the acquisition process. We invite you to contact our gallery to discuss adding a David Schmitt painting to your collection.

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A Fragile Balance

About David Schmitt

David Schmitt, born in Bamberg, Germany, is a contemporary painter and printmaker. After studying Graphic Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Augsburg, he relocated to Barcelona to continue his work as an artist.

Blending folk storytelling with street sensibility, he combines an archaic, childlike aesthetic with bold visual presence and commentary, highlighting texture and rough shapes to capture a sense of timeless simplicity while exploring themes of love, craft, and human connection.

"I have always been drawn to storytelling in painting. For me, it sits somewhere between folk, pop, and cave art, something deeply human. My work can be read as a love letter to all forms of traditional craftsmanship, as I believe that preserving the involvement of the human hand and mind, with all its imperfections, is a way of preserving the soul in the world around us."

Schmitt's paintings favor rough, tactile surfaces and simplified, almost primitive forms, drawing on a lineage that spans folk art, early pop imagery, and even prehistoric mark making. This visual restraint allows the work to focus on feeling over detail, with each piece functioning less as a polished image and more as a gesture of care and presence. His practice is rooted in a belief that imperfection, rather than something to smooth over, is what keeps craftsmanship human, and by extension, keeps the work honest.

Guy Hepner works with collectors seeking David Schmitt's textured, folk-inspired paintings exploring craft and human connection. Contact us to discuss available inventory or to inquire about upcoming releases.

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