Paula Schubatis
is a Detroit-based painter, textile artist and designer who explores the potential of unconventional, overlooked or wasted, materials in creating elevated design objects.
After earning her BFA in 2013 from the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art and Design, Paula explored the conceptual and performative aspects of art through many residency programs in Detroit and abroad including: Red Bull House of Art Detroit Cycle 6, The Atelier House, Hilmseln, Germany and Arusha Meru International School, Arusha, Tanzania.
Paula's practice is driven by her passion for the performative and ceremonial aspect of design and art making as well as the ritual of utilizing functional objects in everyday life. Her work takes on beautiful, painterly, ethereal forms but is often a good-natured poke at traditional notions of style/taste, form and function.
Paula's design work is featured in her eponymous paulaschubatis line which consists of wearable garments and lifestyle objects, the two of which often intersect - function in the paulaschubatis stratosphere takes on a serious, but actively evolving role as the wearer/user invent new ways to engage with an object based on its tactility and form.
Interview with Paula Schubatis
“To know how something works, you must know how it doesn’t work.”
My practice can be described as a series of failed attempts at regulating excessive existential thoughts related to material, object and experience. I want to know how things work. I seek to understand the world through the mechanics of interacting with physical forms. In this method of trial and error, failure is inevitable. But failure does not have a negative connotation in my mind. It represents a breadth of understanding and comprehension.