Nick Schutzenhofer (b. 1981 St. Joseph) is an artist who lives and works in Chicago, IL. He builds pictorial space through the use of an assortment of historic and contemporary materials; oil paint, encaustic, egg oil emulsions, ink, watercolor, pigment dispersions, and paper are layered on linen in compositions emphasizing figure ground relationships to a nearly psychedelic effect. The modified timelines result in a range of imagery derived from folk traditions and modernist abstraction, to channeling early 20th century outliers of writing and drawing. He looks to the endless arrangements of language and representation to provide the potential for new meanings to be found in the world around us. His paintings lie somewhere between material lust and wandering mind; bridging interior and exterior to become analogues for the charmed, often fragmented, experience of being caught in the swifts of the present and the past simultaneously.His most notable project was serving as director and editor of the Arts of Life Band's now-infamous song and music video, Shark Attack. In 2020, as a painter with an avid studio practice, Nick undertook his largest one-person exhibition in Chicago. His paintings have been featured nationally in two-person and group exhibitions.
He received his BA in Art History with a minor in Photography from DePaul University in 2005 and his MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute Chicago in 2014.
He received his BA in Art History with a minor in Photography from DePaul University in 2005 and his MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute Chicago in 2014.