It was in 2007 that Ilona Schmidt ventured into the world of fine art and attracted attention as a painter and sculptor. Her works were first presented in a major exhibition in 2011; since then, not a single year has passed without the artist being represented in one or more solo or group exhibitions in Germany and abroad. Her work has been nominated and honoured several times. Since 2013, she has also been a member of the Bundesverband of Visual Artists.

Schmidt describes her own work as ‘expressive art’. She works in a variety of painting techniques, whereby she achieves a high level of expressiveness through the strong, impasto application of colour - portraits are sometimes abstracted into ‘facial landscapes’. In general, her main theme in painting and sculpture is the human being; in her works on paper and canvas often in an environment that is characterised by urban settings. Her sculptures, on the other hand, remain figurative - albeit often as torsos.