Inge H. Schmidt: Faciality: Beyond the Silk Road

Husk Gallery is pleased to present the first Belgian solo show of the Berlin-based German artist Inge H. Schmidt. The inaugural exhibition 'Faciality - Beyond the Silk Road' offers a first introduction to the extensive painterly body of work through a selection of her renowned series of 'Heads' and 'Landscapes'.

'Faciality - Beyond the Silk Road' is a solo show by Inge H. Schmidt featuring geographically selected works of her series 'Heads' and landscapes. From 2007 to 2011 she travelled with a backpack and sketch book along the old Silk Road in Asia and 2016/17 in Iran, including Hormuz and Qeshm Islands (Bandari Women). The ‘Heads’ are portraits of people she met and drew during her journeys in Central Asia (Pamir Mountains, Wakhan Corridor, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan), China (Xinjiang (Western China), East Tibet, Yunnan, Sichuan, Beijing), South Siberia (Altai, Tuva, Khakassia, Buryatia) and in the Caucasus Mountains (Georgia and Azerbaijan). The artist drew faces of ethnical minorities trying to survive in the lonely huts of the Pamir Mountains, marching through the snowy woods of Siberia or building their existence in sand-covered loam houses at the edges of the Taklamakan Desert. Text fragments of her travel diary accompany the exhibited works and offer glimpses of these people's unique life stories  As nature plays a major role and challenges their daily life, Schmidt's landscapes of the overwhelming natural environment along the Silk Road were added to the exhibition.Some faces and landscapes left deep marks on the artist and will probably affect her artistically for a lifetime.

The exhibition offers more than a visual and textual travel report of personal encounters and sublime landscapes. By linking Inge H. Schmidt’s faces of Asian ethnic minorities and forsaken landscapes to Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s Facialityconcept, the art works reveal the close correlation between face and landscape. The title of the exhibition implies a philosophical approach which goes beyond the Silk Road.