24 june 2025, Martine Bontjes
The studio of... Leonie Schneider
For her graduation project at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, Leonie Schneider built a painting capsule in the garden: a tent that allowed her to paint in 360 degrees. Nature became both workspace and source of inspiration. Inside this shelter, she developed ideas that that took shape during a hiking trip in Norway. Since childhood, Schneider has invented characters whenever she isn’t otherwise stimulated. During her travels, she imagined a group of mushroom characters: mythical beings who have left the modern world behind and surrendered themselves entirely to nature. Through her tapestries, Schneider seeks to spark ecological awareness. She offers a hopeful vision for the future: “I aim to contribute to a space for collective dreaming, where the weight of guilt is replaced with the possibility of recovery and solidarity.”
On Friday 27 June, Schneider will present her tapestries at TENT Rotterdam. Register here. Later this summer, her work will be on view at Rademakers Gallery during the Enter Art Fair in Copenhagen, from 28 to 31 August 2025.
Where is your studio and how would you describe this place?
For the past two years my studio was in Rotterdam at the Piet Zwart Fine Arts Master building in the center of the city. I shared the space with fellow artist Esmee Bruins, and our space was an energetic chaos. The studio building and community of the Piet Zwart with about 20 fellow students was a very inspiring environment. Our studios have 4-meter high ceilings and about 5-meter-long white walls, which inspired me to work big. We had access to project spaces in which we could try out our artistic ideas and receive feedback from fellow artists from all around the world. Everyone has very diverse practices and the feedback encouraged me to try out new things. In our ground floor studio, Esmee Bruins and I had a view into the self-organised garden and it was lovely to see the leaves greening and hear the birds whilst working on my paintings.
Leonie Schneider, Completely packed with herring, Rademakers Gallery
Let’s say I spent a day as your intern. What would a typical day in your studio be like? What kind of activities or meetings would I witness?
I am an early bird. I cherish the morning hours the most, since my mind is fresh and I am most creative. Every day looks quite different and depends on the stage of the project I am in. Inside the studio, I am mainly working with natural pigments and painting on large surfaces. For my graduation work, however, I built an installation that allowed me to work outdoors. For about three weeks, I had this immersive tent structure installed in a garden. I was painting 360 degrees in whatever weather circumstances.
Your new tapestries are layered and narrated. How do you build such a complex scene? Do you start with one or a few characters? Or do you immediately have every character in mind?
My ongoing project, which I started about two years ago, initially started with a set of characters that came to my mind in 2023 on a trip to Norway. I was driving through the country and camped in forests at fjords and above the Arctic Circle with my partner, Luis Maly. We spend a lot of time hiking in the beautiful nature. Since I was a child, I have had this tendency to imagine characters when I am not otherwise stimulated. One day on a hike in Norway, I suddenly thought of this group of mushroom-headed people that lived a life away from society. They spend their everyday walking, scavenging and being one with the forest. All characters: Gunther, Margot, Robert, Wilda, Franny, and Roos came to me quite simultaneously. I imagined them fighting against forces, inventing survival solutions like sleeping on reindeer moss (like it grows in Norway), having arguments, and crafting their own shoes. Back in my atelier in the Netherlands, I took note of the metaphorical potential of this new story and began expanding its narrative. The imaginative, therefore, was the starting point for a series of works that expanded into matters of urgency. For the particular work at the Graduation exhibition, I did research outside my imaginative storytelling and for my thesis, I interviewed a representative of a nature rights organisation (Leon Lapa Perreira), spoke with an international lawyer (Danai Georgoula), and a speaker for the living (Thijs de Zeeuw) [someone who represents the interests of non-human life, such as plants, animals and ecosystems, ed].
How does that work technically, what is your process from the first sketches to the final tapestries? Do you use any digital tools?
I nearly don’t sketch prior to creating a painting. I prefer to bring my stories directly onto the unbleached cotton with paint. I believe in leaving traces in the works and letting it unfold naturally rather than planning a specific composition. I don't use any digital tools. During my travels however, I do keep a sketchbook and I also write my observations, which later inspire my works greatly. Another habit I have gotten into since doing the Piet Zwart Masters is to write down my fictional stories. I see this almost as sketching, since my imagination is the force of my works.
Leonie Schneider, Franni, Rademakers Gallery
Why do you choose to work with natural pigments? Can you describe how that process works, extracting those pigments?
My change to natural pigments is something rather recent, which I got very excited about in the last year, as well as the growing of edible mushrooms and generally allowing traces of nature into the works. I chose to switch from acrylic paint to natural pigments quite simply because I did not want my paint to be made out of plastic. My methodology involves dying my fabrics before painting with a natural ingredient such as turmeric, madder, rose petals, or the collected skins of onions. The pigments I use are at times, mineral, at times sourced from algae, hibiscus, earth, or other matter. Some pigments I purchase, for others I boil the ingredients until only the colour is left, and then I mix it with materials like Agar Agar or Gum to make it into a gooey substance.
When working with natural dyes like curcuma or hibiscus, can you predict the exact color you'll get? Have there been moments when the result surprised you?
Acrylic paint is a film of easily applied, long-lasting plastic that does not get impacted by light. Natural pigments, on the other hand, are challenging to dilute, crumbly, fragile, change over time, and light impacts the colour. This new ephemeral methodology of dying and painting with natural ingredients on unstretched textile results in the works taking up less space and having a smaller impact on the environment. The pigments indeed get impacted in a totally different way than acrylic paint could. For instance Kurkuma reacts with the acids in the rain and when I painted my graduation installation outdoors, some of the yellow turned pink. Or when I was steaming a sheet of algae coloured textile, it turned brown wherever the hot air touched the material.
In your new series of tapestries, we see fish and birds among other species. Why did you switch from human figures to animal characters?
Undergoing research, such as interviewing a speaker for the living, has inspired me to depict more and more natural elements and creatures. I started to see the urgency of introducing matters of environmental crises into the narrative I am creating. I carry hope and belief to spread optimism when giving a voice to natural elements. It is essential to imagine futures in which care for one another, as well as for the living world, take a lead role.
Leonie Schneider, Seaweed sings, Rademakers Gallery
With titles like ‘Seaweed sings’ and ‘Water has a voice,’ you attribute human qualities to these natural figures. What exactly do you want to express?
The titles of my new works come from my research around nature gaining a voice in human dialogue. The encounters I had during my thesis research, such as dining with a shepherd, partaking in a conference of the nature rights organisation Embassy of the North Sea, and camping in the Veluwe, inform the narratives I create, where fiction and reality blur to envision a future in which humanity and nature coexist in harmony, unfolding a world of hope, optimism, and interconnectedness. I aim to contribute to a space for collective dreaming, where the weight of guilt is replaced with the possibility of recovery and solidarity. By exploring the interdependence of living and non-living entities, my works carry environmental agency and invite various perspectives to shape the future. My practice encourages us to dream of a future that blends nature with our artificial world to imagine new stories and principles of hope, determination, and collaboration.
Besides animals, various mushrooms are on display. Why are you so fascinated by mushrooms?
Over time, I came to acknowledge the metaphorical power of mushrooms, and the mushroom head turned into a symbol for hope. Mushrooms grow from decayed matter, like dead trees or animal droppings. I learned in the book ‘The Mushroom At The End Of The World’ that a shitake mushroom was the first living organism that grew after the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima. The mushroom-headed characters depict urgency, hope, and a belief in the human capability to change. The characters are caught in a moment of transitioning from human to plant. Though mushrooms are actually not considered to be a plant. There are believed to be something between plant and animal, but I would say their intelligence is hard to measure considering for instance mycelium structure through which trees can communicate.
Leonie Schneider, Mushrooms in Seeland, Rademakers Gallery
Are there any color or material experiments you would like to explore further in the future?
My recent experiment; bringing my paintings into space and creating installation pieces that immerse a viewer into an environment, has been an exciting new discovery that I want to further expand. The work now has a theatrical character, like finding oneself in a scenery. I also started treating both the back and front side of my paintings equally and am enjoying their new ability to hang in space. Painting on both sides enables me to tell complex narratives and allows for strange, intriguing compositions where colours bleed and mix unintentionally. I want to further experiment with this more three dimensional aspect of my works.
