Lena Schmidt's work celebrates places of urban abandonment, industrial wastelands, concrete ruins. There, she looks for leftovers of industrial wood, such as pallets or boxes, and is captivated by the traces of the place and its history „written into“ those planks and blocks. Her modus operandi is deliberately reduced, applying black edding, sometimes shades of colored enamel on the wood, and then scratching it off in thin, fine lines. This preserves the unique character of the wood and results in works of reduced colouring, but with rich, manifold visual impression. The combination of technical-graphical colour application (edding, enamel) and organic material (wood) allows Schmidt's work not only to capture the very moment of her forgotten places, but their history and memory as well.

Lena Schmidt has studied Liberal Arts with Prof. Mullican and Prof. Burki at the University of Arts Hamburg. Her work was shown, among others, in group exhibitions in the Hanover Kunstverein and on the Art Basel Miami Beach. Recently she had solo shows in the Victory Gallery, Portland OR (USA) and in the K' – Zentrum für aktuelle Kunst in Bremen.