Artist Spotlight: Claudia Schmidt
People often ask me what Candy Decay means.
I understand why. At first glance, my paintings are full of bright colours, strawberries, pigeons, cake, pizza and tiny absurd stories. Then people start noticing the bones, skulls and little reminders that nothing lasts forever. The name sounds darker than the paintings look, and the paintings look happier than they really are.
That's exactly the point.
I've never been interested in making art that feels purely cheerful, but I'm equally uninterested in making gloomy art. The work I return to most often as a viewer usually leaves me with a feeling I can't quite explain. It might make me smile first, then quietly unsettle me a few moments later. There's a slight tension, a sense of longing or something unresolved that stays with me long after I've stopped looking.
That's what I try to create with Candy Decay.
Not sadness.
Not happiness.
Something that feels a little more like real life.
This January I experienced a carotid artery dissection. Physically I was incredibly fortunate and recovered well, but the experience changed the way I look at the world. I'm still in therapy for the anxiety disorder that followed. When I think back to the hospital, I don't only remember fear. I remember becoming aware of how fragile everything suddenly felt.
The strange thing is that, overall, I love my life.
I have two wonderful children, a husband who supports me, a little house in the countryside, two Bengal cats, music, my guitar and a studio where I get to paint every day. I genuinely consider myself a happy person.
Those two realities don't cancel each other out.
I can feel grateful and still carry fear.
I can laugh while knowing that life is fragile.
Over time I realised I didn't want to paint one side or the other. I wanted to paint both at once. That's how Candy Decay slowly became less of a style and more of a way of understanding the world.
Being autistic and having ADHD probably played a role in that long before this year. I've often felt as though I existed somewhere between categories instead of neatly fitting inside them. Somewhere between woman and man. Between adulthood and childhood. Between wanting to belong and quietly accepting that I probably never would.
Painting is the only place where none of those questions matter.
Inside Candy Decay, everything is allowed to exist together. A pigeon can wear a top hat. A mackerel can rest on strawberry ice cream. Frogs can fall from the sky. Bones can sit next to candy without either one needing to explain itself. The paintings don't ask whether something belongs before allowing it into the world.
Maybe that's why I became so attached to the idea of sending my monthly postcards without envelopes.
Every month I create a completely new postcard exclusively for my subscribers. Each one is hand signed, individually numbered and embossed with my artist's seal before it leaves my studio. Once an edition is gone, I never print it again. A small percentage of the cards receive an extra surprise, whether that's a glitter finish or another hand-altered variation, but most travel exactly as they are.
People often tell me an envelope would protect them better.
They're right.
But protection has never been the idea.
I like knowing that every postcard begins collecting its own story before it reaches the person who ordered it. It passes through sorting centres, crosses borders, collects postmarks and occasionally arrives with tiny traces of that journey. I don't see those marks as damage. To me, they're a reminder that the artwork already has a history before it finds its place in someone's home.
In a way, I think people are like that too.
None of us arrives untouched. We collect experiences, fears, joy, grief and countless little moments that quietly shape us over time. We spend so much energy trying to hide those marks, even though they're often the reason we become interesting in the first place.
Candy Decay has never been about celebrating decay itself.
It's about accepting that sweetness and fragility have always belonged together.
The brightest memories of my life exist alongside some of the hardest ones. My paintings simply stopped pretending those things live in separate worlds.
That's why the postcards travel without an envelope.
Not because I want them to arrive imperfect.
Because they were never meant to stay untouched in the first place.
About the Artist
Claudia Schmidt is a German artist and the creator of Candy Decay, a surreal art project exploring the space where sweetness and impermanence meet. Working with acrylic and alcohol markers on wood panels before finishing them with a glossy resin coat, she creates vibrant, playful worlds that balance humour with quiet emotional tension. Alongside her original paintings and signed prints, she also releases a new limited postcard each month, each one hand signed, individually numbered and embossed before beginning its journey through the postal system.
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Website: PaintRanger.net
