Beautiful People 2009: Aurel Schmidt

Aurel Schmidt was born and raised in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, an off-the-map place with little promise and even less nurturing. "I grew up in a white-trash small town where everyone did crystal meth and everyone was a 'wigger,'" recalls Schmidt, matter-of-factly. "I was a really bad teenager and my parents never encouraged me to go to college." But at 18, like a bat out of hell, the self-described redneck girl jetted to Vancouver, where she met and hung out with art-school kids. Soon she was reading the books they were reading and picking up on the ideas that they were talking about. And she'd always liked to draw.

In 2005, Schmidt decided on a move to New York City, where she got an apartment in Bed-Stuy, worked several jobs, including one as door girl at The Delancey, and kept drawing. After four of her pieces were featured in a group show curated by Tim Barber (a friend from Vancouver), renowned European collector Dakis Joannou bought two and suddenly Schmidt was plopped smack-dab on the art-market radar. Since that career-launching show at the Spencer Brownstone gallery, the 25-year-old blonde, who wears cartoon-size glasses, has had successful solo shows at Peres Projects in L.A. (2007) and Deitch Projects (2008). Of her success, she says, "I knew what was happening was something really amazing, and wasn't anything I thought could ever happen to me or would happen to me. It was my biggest fantasy and it was coming true, and I worked really, really hard."
CAROL LEE

Aurel wears a dress by Maison Martin Margiela and leggings by Louis Vuitton. · Hair: Kiehl's Creative Cream Wax · Foundation: Yves Saint Laurent Perfect Touch Radiant Brush Foundation

< BACK TO THE BEATUTIFUL PEOPLE 2009 LIST