The World According to Lynn Schuette: A Must-See at PHES Gallery

By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photos by Maurice Hewitt.

 

Always Wear Lipstick #1

The title of the new Lynn Schuette show at Carlsbad’s PHES Gallery is Always Wear Lipstick, but that, as the artist said when we were lucky enough to be there for the hanging, was just for fun, to see how people would respond.

For 45 years she has painted large-scale canvases that express how she feels about society, the environment, and whatever else comes to her mind. In 1980 she founded Sushi Performance and Visual Art in a downtown warehouse, where she lived, did all the necessary work, and featured provocative, cutting-edge artists for 15 years. Then she left to work on her own art, which has been included in museums and private collections around San Diego County and beyond ever since.

This current exhibit includes several of the projects she’s been working on over the years.

“We start with Stagnation, and move into Revival,” she said. 

The front room in the gallery features pieces from her Stagnation Series, the beginning of her Covid-era work.  She’d had a feeling of some calamity coming, and then the pandemic happened, followed by lockdown.

Just When You Thought You Were Safe

 

She started ripping up old paintings to throw out but decided there was something else she could do: use the fragments to create new artworks instead. All the pieces on view here are “cut-ups”, some painted over, some not.

Study for Slipping Beauty and Study for WooHoo.

 

In the next room there’s Essential Décor--eight pieces sold together as one piece. A significant part of this is a portrait of Artemisia Gentileschi, a 17^th century Italian painter who managed to become a celebrated artist despite a violent rape and living in an age when there were virtually no opportunities for female artists.

The artist holding her Artemesia. 

Another part of Essential Décor: an illustrated James Baldwin poem.

 In an adjoining space is the One Dozen Roses Project, started in the late 1960s as a tribute to anti-war protests and created from photos she had made of aging roses. It’s an ongoing project: when a work is sold, she does a new painting to keep the dozen complete.

One of the One Dozen Roses: Je Suis Fatigué de Sang (I Am Tired of Blood.)

In the last room is Schuette’s Revival, a three-panel portrait she made of a photo of dancers from the company of choreographer Pina Bausch, a photo she loved and kept in her home studio.

“I never paint figures, but I decided to do it,” she said. “It was sort of like shedding my skin… a revival.”

Revival.

As her exhibit was being hung by gallery owners Paul Henry and Ellen Speert, she was not just an observer; she and her assistant, Lauren Nett, found plenty to do.

Lynn Schuette and Lauren Nett at work at the hanging. 

“It’s fun,” she said. “I don’t want to just scribble something down; I do it all. I like the whole process.”

This exhibit can be a full-on experience. Seeing these works in person and taking your time with them you really feel the spirit of the artist coming through.

It’s not about lipstick; it’s about life.  Don’t miss this show.

Lynn Schuette: Always Wear Lipstick
PHES GALLERY
On view through December 14, 2025.
2633 State Street, Carlsbad Village 92008
Gallery Hours: Thursday-Saturday, 2-5 p.m., and by appointment.
info@PHESGallery.com

Lonnie Burstein Hewitt is an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has been writing about arts and lifestyles in San Diego County for over a dozen years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net