Artists work pierces troubling subject matter

Thursday, Jan. 13, 2005 | 8:27 a.m.

Adam Schneider is a "lost soul," a 25-year-old artist and body piercer whose explorations into depression, shame and guilt resulted in "Illuminations of Guilt," an exhibition of mostly acrylic paintings, through January at the Funk House.

Clad in checkered Vans, oversized jeans, a zip-up sweatshirt and more silver on his face than you'd find in your grandmother's cutlery collection, Schneider, known more commonly as Adam! looks across his art hanging in the back room of the Funk House.

The dark images, religious iconography and symbols of despair, he says, come mostly from dreams, but harbor a unifying theme of darkness lurking throughout humanity.

"(These) are our deepest feelings of guilt, depression and shame," Schneider said. "These are the most base feelings we have. They're all very connected, very dualistic."

The exhibit, part of the rotating exhibits that Cindy Funkhouser holds in conjunction with First Fridays, features surrealist paintings with Christian, demonic and Satanic imagery and tattoo iconography. The work sells for upward of $700 a painting.

In "Depression," Guilt, a character composed of wooden logs who Schneider said represents humans in their "base form," is slumped on a tree stump. Opened doors on his chest show his glowing insides where snakes slither next to a skull with daggers protruding from its eyes.

There is a melting clock attached to him. Looking at the clock, Schneider said, "You never know when it's going to give out. We all have our time elements.

"(Depression) never seems to end. It goes on. Time is distorted. He's alone on the pedestal, seeping away, alone, nobody seems to care."

In "It's All From a Sacrificial Standpoint," a skeleton hand cuts the flesh of another wrist as the blood drains into an overflowing teacup. The open barren landscape portrays the soul. The painting, he said, represents death and life.

In "Addiction," a mixed-media piece in a cigar box, the character Guilt is spilling out, crumpled over. A fetus, representing the monster of addiction, surrounds Guilt. A wood path, Schneider said, "represents a path to a brighter day, but he can't get to it. He's just stuck."

In another, Guilt is carrying a jar on his back filled with nightmares, renditions of hate, bugs and lizards.

The artwork, Schneider said, "It's mostly what I think these feelings would look like. It's one thing to say 'guilt,' to say 'depression,' and it's one thing to see it."

A body piercer at Sin City Tattoo on East Charleston Boulevard, Schneider is originally from the area of Big Bear, Calif. He intensified his interest in painting when he moved to Las Vegas and worked as a body piercer and tattoo apprentice at Pussykat Tattoo. He first showed his work in the inaugural "Tattoos and Trash" exhibit at the Funk House, then at Gallery Au Go-Go's mixed-artist exhibits.

Schneider is often asked if he indeed is a lost soul. With each blink his eyelids reveal the tattooed words. Does he feel this way?

"A lot of times I do," Schneider said. "Floating around, looking at what to do with work, with money, religion."

But the dark tones in his art, he said, don't necessarily reflect day-to-day emotions.

And eventually, Schneider said he may look at expressing some lighter emotions, maybe even happiness.

"That will hopefully be the next series of paintings," he said with no sense of irony. "It's a matter of 'How do you draw happiness? Make people feel it, understand it?' "