Artist Joe Schaeffer

Joe Schaeffer’s work is evolving.

The Sioux Falls artist is known for graffiti-inspired shapes, broad strokes and bold colors. Think big paintings – the kind you have to step back, way back, to really see. And when your eyes adjust to the scale and the shapes, what emerges is a kind of gut-punch of emotion.

Now, some of his newer pieces take those same bold shapes, shrink them and move from one or two on a canvas to hundreds, clustered together in a way that reads angled and detailed up close but fluid and sweeping from across the room.

“I think it’s just growth,” said Schaeffer, who is a professor at the University of Sioux Falls and co-owner of the Norse Art Space, a small gallery. “I’m trying to figure out where I fit in this broader landscape of fine art and the art world, and I keep pushing and pushing.”

He said his early works were expressive and bold, partly inspired by the West Coast, where his mom’s family lived.

“I never grew up in galleries. My parents didn’t expose me to that, so the first form of art I saw was public – including public art in the form of graffiti,” Schaeffer said. “It was tagged on the side of walls and trains, and it sort of permanently ingrained itself in my visual psyche. The visual language of my paintings is a reference to that.”

They also reference his background in graphic design – with a typographical feel to the shapes.

“When I first started, it was about getting out of the computer, which is very constrained and not physical at all,” said Schaeffer. “When I started painting, I wanted them to be very physical and large. I still like the physicality, but it’s changing.”

Schaeffer created “Anchored in the Subsurface” for the Community Foundation. The Foundation commissions a piece of artwork every year to continue to support local artists. The work is displayed at the Foundation and added to its collection.

“Joe’s work has so much movement to it, with layers of shapes, colors and feelings,” said Jacqueline Palfy, vice president of communications for the Foundation. “We’re excited to add his work to our collection and continue to celebrate the many talented local artists in our community.”

For “Anchored in the Subsurface,” Schaeffer began with a gestural swoop of blue in the background. He likes to start in a way that’s charismatic and intuitive. After that first shape, the painting sat for a month. He would come into the gallery and look at it, wondering what to add.

Next came the graffiti shapes in miniature, drawn in paint-marker like puzzle pieces.

But he knew he wanted some tension in the piece, so he added the graphic-design-esque dot matrix in a purplish red. Made with a stencil and spray paint, it sits inside the painting.

“The painting is really about rocks and water and the formation, and about surface and depth,” Schaeffer said, noting the purple is a nod to quartzite.

It’s all part of where he’s headed as an artist.

“I think this direction is interesting, and I think it will keep me going for a while,” he said. “I’m always trying to get back to what I saw as a kid but interpreted in a new way.”

Schaeffer said being asked to create a piece for the Foundation’s collection was gratifying.

“Any time there’s direct support for an artist, with full support of their approach in making art, that’s the epitome of how art should function within the ecosystem,” he said. “That support from the Community Foundation speaks volumes to me about what they believe art can do.”