Select Review

Portrait of An Artist: Paul Galschneider - from Nantucket Today
Inspired by nature, artist finds a home on the wharf - from The Inquirer and Mirror
Paul Galschneider In His Studio - from WickedLocal, Nantucket
"Creative Juices" in Nantucket Times, 2003
"Paintings by the Pool" in The Inquirer and Mirror, 2004

From The Inquirer and Mirror, Nantucket, July 1, 2010:

Inspired by nature, artist finds a home on the wharf

Unlike a lot of artists, Paul Galschneider's interest in art didn't develop until later in life. Although he dipped his toes into watercolor painting when he was a student, it wasn't until someone gave him a painting as a gift 17 years ago that he became more serious and started considering art as a career.

"My grandfather was an artist and my brother was as well, but painting was something I really took up on my own," said Galschneider. "My subject varies depending on the season, but I mostly stick to landscapes, seascapes and occasionally portraits."

Born in Czechoslovakia in 1957, Galschneider moved to the United States in 1985 and settled on Nantucket in 1994. After apprenticing with artist Earl Biss in 1993, Galschneider was able to create and develop his own style which he has now perfected. His works are displayed around the island, and now finally at his own gallery at 23A Old South Wharf.

"I would consider my work to be abstract, impressionistic and expressionistic," continued Galschneider. "I try to combine two subjects into one painting and try to incorporate a unique sense of color."

Galschneider's piece "Brant Point" is an example of one of his paintings that combines two different subjects into one work. Still in progress, the lighthouse is hidden behind a vibrantly-colored hydrangea bush, two subjects that Galschneider believes complement each other very well.

"The lighthouse just seems to pop behind the bush," he said. "I'm still working on it, but you can see how nicely the two fit together."

In addition to painting outside, Galschneider said that he likes to work in his studio and now in his gallery, where he has set up a station to do just that. Sitting beside the harbor, the gallery is the perfect place for him to paint boats - something he said he will start to do more often soon. It is also a place for him to sit and reflect in a separate seating area he has set up in a corner of the 700-square-foot space.

"I like to be able to sit down and relax and just enjoy the scenery around me," he said. "I'm in the perfect location now to look out my back door and paint the boats I see sitting in the harbor. Plus, painting water improves a painter's sense of scale, so that will be something I can continue to work on."

In addition to painting seascapes, Galschneider also creates works of flowers - from sunflowers to tulips - that are inspired by his memories of seeing them as a child. A month-long trip to Charleston, S.C. inspired a series of nine works, one of which is still available at the gallery.

"I'm very influenced by what I see around me," said Galschneider. "Whether it's an abstract landscape or floral, or a painting of Madaket, that presents stillness or quiet, I like to make sure I capture what I see."

When Galschneider isn't painting in his studio or his gallery, you might be able to find him creating one of his series of copper sculptures. In the gallery is an 18-bottle wine-holder with an accompanying chair, both made from copper mixed with other natural materials.

"This is something I started doing recently," he said. "I did this particular wine-holder with candelabras for the wine festival a few years back. It's something very different from painting but it's all another form of expression."

Galschneider's works range from $600-$25,000. They can be viewed at the Even Keel Cafe, 40 Main St., J Pepper Frazier, 19 Centre St., Nantucket Airport, 14 Airport Road, his studio at 14 Atlantic Ave., and at his Old South Wharf gallery.

For more information, call (508) 228-2658 or visit Galschneider's website at www.paulgal.com.

Nantucket Today, Story by Catherine Fahy, Photography by Nicole Harnishfeger, Sept/Oct 2005

Paul Galschneider's position might be enviable to many. The Czechoslovakian-born painter has to notify immigration officials if he wants to leave New England for more than two days, which means he rarely leaves Nantucket.

He certainly doesn't mind. He and his wife Theresa have a 15-month-old daughter, Paloma, and these days his painting career demands equal attention. With half a dozen island venues including The Summer House and the year-round Even Keel Cafe displaying his work, Galschneider's large, textural, impressionistic florals, seascapes and figures in bright gold frames are attracting a lot of attention.

"We have a lot of people who notice them and ask about them," said Even Keel waiter Brad Fair on an overcast day in late July when the busy Main Street restaurant was full of customers. "There are many people who express interest in the paintings and comment positively."

On a foggy afternoon in the middle of July, with his studio doors open to the patio he's building in his back yard on Atlantic Avenue, Galschneider sipped a glass of Cisco beer and talked about his journey from Czechoslovakia, including the 19 months he spent in jail.

Like so many artists' studios, Galschneider's is an autobiography as much as a workplace. In one corner, an early painting - a dark sinister-looking portrait of his first teacher, Native American Earl Biss - hangs next to a large dusty tree-like copper pipe sculpture that's part wine rack, part candelabra and part wine-glass holder, with the base of each glass hanging from the metal branches like ripe fruit. Galschneider said he enjoys sculpting, though he hasn't had much time for it and hopes to do more of it in the future. Fishing poles lean against another wall, children's toys fill the corner behind the door and the pungent smell from bottles of linseed oil, turpentine and varnish fill the air.

The centerpiece of Galschneider's studio is a heavily-carved Rococo-style easel holding a painting in progress, the suggestion of figures outlined in blue ready to be filled in with his signature palette of bright primary colors. He said the carved easel is more decorative than anything else and he actually prefers to work on a studio easel that was a gift from Biss.

The most remarkable thing about Galschneider's current work is its extreme texture, called impasto. In one, tossing lavender waves seem frozen mid-crest, about to splash off the canvas. Galschneider said the texture comes from applying the paint with a palette knife instead of a brush.

"I love the texture of the paint and the more you move it around, the more colors you get," he said.

In some paintings on display at The Summer House this year he used that extreme texture to juxtapose the horizon line between the ledges of the white paint-capped waves and the smooth blue sky, with a few corresponding streaks of white to indicate clouds. The effect was striking and at a Summer House reception July 23 several paintings of sea and sky sold.

"I'm very appreciative I can show my work there, it's beautiful spot and it's very inspiring to see the ocean," Galschneider said.

Born in Czechoslovakia, Galschneider lived in Austria for 16 years before coming to the United States when he was 28 years old. His first stop was Boulder, Colo., through connections his first wife had made. He painted occasionally, he said, but mostly worked in the restaurant business and bought and sold cars to support his wife and daughter, who is now in her mid-20s and living in Montague, Mass.

From Boulder, Galschneider moved to New Jersey. Though he worked primarily as a New York City money broker's private chauffeur, he also started painting more, frequently going to Rhode Island to study with Biss, a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. He met his second wife at Biss' studio in Little Compton. After three years in New Jersey, Galschneider moved to southern Massachusetts where his wife grew up.

In April 1994, he made his first visit to Nantucket for Daffodil Weekend. Shortly thereafter he moved to the island from New Bedford. "We decided to stay because the economy was good," he said simply.

On the island, Galschneider worked as a plumber but increasingly devoted more time to painting, which he now does full-time. In 1997 he had his first show of work at jeweler Bill Rowe's shop on Centre Street, where he sold nearly half a dozen pieces. "For the middle of the winter it was pretty successful for a first show," he said.

Personally, things then took a drastic turn for the worse, though, when he ran into what he called "divorce troubles" and his wife reported him to immigration officials. He was at home in his rented house on Cliff Road one day when they came to the door, strip-searched him in the living room, arrested him and took him away, he said. A painting of that room is in his studio.

"See that chair on the right side?" he asked, pointing to the painting. "That's where Immigration stripped me naked and took me away."

Ironically, though, even if those officials wanted to send him back to Czechoslovakia, they couldn't because by then the country had split into Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Galschneider spent 19 months in jail in Rhode Island before his immigration troubles were cleared up.

"That's why I ended up that long being in jail," he said. "They couldn't deport me anywhere."

In prison in Cranston, R.I. he said he struggled to retain his identity and painting was out of the question. "They called you by a number, not a name," he said.

His immigration problems began, Galschneider said, when he moved from Denver to New Jersey and a letter notifying him of a court date in Colorado didn't reach him. He had applied for political asylum upon arriving in America, he said, and when he didn't show up for his court date he was placed on the deportation list.

"Deportation," incidentally, was the title of a smaller painting at The Summer House in July, showing three figures with their backs to the viewer, one ushering away the other two with rounded shoulders and defeated-looking postures.

The spectre of such a such a scene haunts Galschneider, even though he is married to an American and his daughter was born in this country. He said if he wants to leave New England for more than two days he has to notify immigration officials. It's not surprising, then, that he hasn't traveled much but it is surprising, he said, how much he misses Nantucket when he does. In recalling a quick trip to Florida with fellow artist Paul Arsenault, Galschneider said he had tears in his eyes when the plane took off from Nantucket.

"It's a very nice community, rich in history and culture, and I feel very safe here," he said.

For now, he said he's content not to travel because of his daughter's age. And while his family visits from Slovakia every year, he said someday he'd like to return to his homeland. In the meantime, he said his attorney is working on removing him from the deportation list. "Life has been good but I'm still kind of locked in. It's like being a bird in a golden cage," he said.

Aside from "Deportation," and an occasional dark abstract, there's little of evidence of personal demons in Galschneider's work. The abstract "School of Fish" was painted over a gentler image of waterlilies when he got out of jail and couldn't afford new paints and canvases. "I hadn't painted in two years and there's a lot of energy in it," he said, standing in the soft twilight by the Summer House pool at his opening reception in July.

Galschneider said since getting out of jail, remarrying and having a child, he's been able to forget about his past, move on and be happy. "I just went back to work like I'd never left.

It hangs over my head but you have to forget about it," he said.

From "Creative Juices" in Nantucket Times, 2003:

In Paul Galschneider's world, color and light rule supreme. His lush paintings in oil capture Nantucket bathed in a Fauvist's pallet, with golden light and undertones of red, lavender, lime green and yellow. His work includes streetscapes, landscapes, interiors, and florals, rendered in a painterly manner reminiscent of Van Gogh, whom he cites as an early influence--quite an accomplishment for an artist who is essentially self-taught and who has only been painting for about ten years. Galschneider, who is originally from Slovakia, took painting classes when he first arrived in this country.

"From the day I first got paint, it just grabbed me and it's getting stronger and stronger," he said. His studio is filled with canvases, covering all wall surfaces, propped up on the floor, and displayed on fanciful easels that he constructs out of copper pipe and fittings. As a plumbing and heating contractor, he's found a creative use for his "day-job" materials. Besides the easels, Galschneider builds whimsical wing-backed chairs out of the pipe; a wine rack stands almost seven feet tall, with twisting pipe-vines to hold glassware and with spaces for 18 bottles. His imagination is boundless and though he works from still-life and existing landscapes, paintings are often formulated in his mind before they appear on the canvas.

"I study the light; I study the shapes," Galschneider said. "I like to capture the light and the timing of the day," he added. "It's a challenge to do that." Nantucket has provided bountiful subject matter and community support as well. Fellow artist George Thomas helped him join and exhibit at Nantucket Artists' Association. Paul Arsenault shared techniques for working "in plain air." He has slowly established himself on Nantucket through both good years and difficult ones.

"I really want to thank the many members of the community who supported me," Galschneider noted. Just looking at the results of those efforts, friends and patrons must know that they have indeed nurtured a special talent....

--Reema Sherry