It curls!
When Ju Schnee stops thinking, something remarkable happens: forms begin to emerge. It’s been this way all her life. Pen, paper and notebook are never far from reach. Welcome to the vivid world of the Vienna-based artist
Ju Schnee, why curls?
I’ve been drawing since I was a child – whenever I had to listen, in class or on the phone. It was always curls, small organic shapes, without any particular aim, just flowing from my hand. My schoolbooks are full of them. For me, they’re the most natural way of making movement and thought visible. They’re intuitive, they happen without thinking – and today they form the backbone of my work.
And everything starts in notebooks?
Yes. Keywords, quotes, sentences, lists, fragments of thought – everything first goes into notebooks. I sketch on paper, on my iPad, sometimes even on envelopes or receipts. But notebooks are my memory, my archive. In the studio, they become the starting point for my paintings and sculptures. Without them, something essential would be missing – and that is access to my spontaneous ideas.
You combine painting with digital elements, extending it through augmented reality. Why this hybrid approach?
It’s about movement and life. For me, painting on its own is quite a static medium: painted, hung, done. I wanted to find ways of adding another layer. The animations deepen the narrative of my paintings and bring them to life. I’m a hybrid myself: intuitive and physical, with a background in yoga and ballet, but also digital, connected and drawn to technology. I find that interplay between the old and the new fascinating.
Your curls feel vibrant, powerful, almost naive – but in a very self-assured way. How personal are these forms?
I call them Ju Schnee Shapes. Every shape carries my signature, my intuition, my movement. The physical act of working with my hands is essential. Painting, sketching, modelling – it takes me to a place where I’m fully with myself and can switch off my mind. Working with my hands opens up a direct path to my creativity – much like fishing, or yoga.
How important are notebooks?
They’re the starting point of every work. Every handwritten note, every sketch is essentially a graphic trace of a reflection, an idea, a thought – ultimately a movement that has passed through my hand. The moment I look at it, I’m right back in that original, intuitive impulse.
"From the hand, to the paper, to the canvas – the movement of my hands is in every shape."
Has your handwriting changed?
It used to be neat, rounded, flowing – back when I still wrote with a fountain pen. Today it’s rougher, bolder. But the expression is the same: large, sweeping, fast.
You once said that chaos is important to you. How does that fit with notebooks?
Chaos and structure exist side by side. At home – accounts, bills, paintings – everything tends to be scattered about. The notebooks help me gather the creative side. They’re small anchors in an otherwise very open process.
Could you live without analogue tools?
That would be difficult. I could do without digital media, but working with my hands – drawing, making – is central to me. Sketching, painting, shaping forms with my hands: that’s non-negotiable. The hands are tools of reflection, intuition and creativity. Every shape contains the movement of my hands. From hand to paper to canvas – that’s the foundation. The digital carries that movement out into the world.
Ju Schnee
Ju Schnee (34) works across painting and sculpture, creating a distinctive, transformative space within contemporary art. Her practice brings together the tactile and the digital in a visual language that is organic, otherworldly and consistently abstract. She holds a Master of Arts from the University of Applied Sciences in Graz and has long pushed beyond traditional boundaries by combining oil painting with augmented reality (AR). Her work repeatedly returns to a core vocabulary:
abstract, biomorphic shapes – on canvas, as digital flow forms and, since 2020, as sculptural objects. Her work has been shown in galleries in Los Angeles, Berlin, Vienna and Paris, as well as at art fairs including KIAF Seoul. It reflects the evolving nature of contemporary art, where tradition and innovation are not opposites but collaborators in the creation of new aesthetic experiences. She lives in Vienna with her husband and their child.
Author Ralf Grauel
Ralf Grauel is an economics journalist, publicist and consultant. He was editor and author for “brand eins”, “brand eins Wissen” and “Zeit Magazin”. With his “Grauel Publishing” team, he has developed “Writers and Thinkers”, where he regularly holds conversations with people about thinking by hand.