Paul Schütze

Who is Paul Schütze?

Paul Schütze is an Australian artist resident in London. Over thirty years his work has spanned composition, performance, installation, video, printmaking and photography.

Schütze was born in Melbourne, Australia. He spent his childhood painting and drawing but left Caulfield Institute after only two months of an Arts Foundation Course to work in a factory. There he earned the money to buy his first electronic musical equipment. In 1979 he spend several months travelling and ended up in London where he immersed himself in concerts, museums and galleries. Returning to Melbourne he formed seminal improvising group Laughing Hands with Gordon Harvey, Ian Russell and Paul Widdicombe. The group existed in several forms until disbanding in 1982.

Schütze spent the next decade writing scores for films. His first feature soundtrack, The Tale of Ruby Rose, won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best original Music Score. During this period Schütze lectured on film sound at both Swinburne Institute and AFTRS and worked as a film critic both in print and on national radio.

In collaboration with Michael Trudgeon, Anthony Kitchener and Dominic Lowe Schütze curated and featured in Deus Ex Machina, an ambitious exhibition/ publication at Monash University in 1989. This was to be his first sound installation and subsequently his first solo album.