NEW YORK SOLO EXHIBITION OPENS JANUARY 17
All Kinds of Ways to Your Garden
New Paintings by Douglas Witmer
January 17 – March 1, 2013
Reception: Thursday, January 17, 6-8pm
BLANK SPACE
511 West 25th Street, Suite 204
New York, NY
FROM THE : In his second exhibition with the gallery, Witmer continues to refine an ongoing investigation of color and surface in abstract painting. Witmer’s canvases, with merely one or two delineated blocks of emphatic color positioned in relation to soft grey grounds, appear stunningly direct and simple upon first glance. But a sustained viewing of the work allows the energy of Witmer’s carefully considered dualities to manifest itself. Gesture emerges from the grey-stained grounds, which are made by cascading pigment onto a soaking wet surface. Seemingly hard edges color actually begin to fray where the artist has intentionally allowed paint to bleed just so in the taping process. The color blocks overlap subtle and not-so-subtle margins the artist creates near the outer edges of the canvases. On one hand the work evokes certainty and solidity, and perhaps stillness. But on the other hand every element is kept light, actively in play, and up for consideration. Nothing is totally settled. The artist has said: “enamored as I am of what I perceive to be utter simplicity and perfection in painting, when I have the opportunity for it in my practice, I become restless. At the edge of perfection, I stumble.”
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MORE NEWS
The Subjective Object at ParisCONCRET, in Paris, France, closed on December 22. Above is an installation view with the work of Louise Blyton (AU) on the left and a set of my work on paper to the right.
Philadelphia’s inaugural Art CSA project (which includes work from my “School Papers” series), is on view at Philadelphia’s City Hall through February 15.
The city also purchased a share for its public collection.
I am very happy to announce that I have accepted an invitation to join the artist collective Tiger Strikes Asteroid.
Founded in 2009, Tiger Strikes Asteroid has received national recognition for its artist-curated exhibition program and now has sister locations in Philadelphia and Brooklyn.
I’m looking forward to becoming part of this community, exhibiting new personal projects, and curating future exhibitions. Stay tuned.
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BACK TO BACK GROUP EXHIBITIONS AT CRANE ARTS, PHILA
Winter Down
Amy Lincoln, Beth Livensperger, Mike Stifel, Becky Suss, Douglas Witmer
Curated by Ryan McCartney and Timothy Belknap
The Icebox at Crane Arts
1400 North American Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122
January 8 – February 10, 2013
Opening Reception Thursday, January 10th, 6-10pm
Winter Down, curated by Timothy Belknap and Ryan McCartney, is a salon style exhibition focusing on the work of five participating artists. Each artist will be exhibiting several works ranging from paintings, to object studies, and the mechanical reduction of a single action.
This exhibition explores the systematic notion of its parts becoming the whole- a spatial development by the indiscriminate hanging of both paintings and sculptural objects. The exhibition will be housed inside the Icebox at the Crane Arts building, within a 10’x10’x10’ antechamber. This intimate space will be connected to the entrance of the Icebox by a suspended bridge. The bridge, a psychological transition, functions as the space between the here and there: the departure and the arrival, a pathway to experience.
Surface As Signifier – second installment
University of Delaware Art Gallery @ Crane Arts
1400 North American Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122
February 14 – March 16, 2013
Reception Thursday, February 14, 6-8pm
Curated by Peg Curtin and Bruce Garrity and originally exhibited in October, 2012 at Camden County College (NJ), this curated curated exhibition features the work of Margery Amdur, Donna Czapiga, Nicole Donnelly, James Erikson, Anne Seidman, Robert Straight, Leslie Wayne, and Douglas Witmer.
FROM THE : “Surface as Signifier” seeks to explore trends in painting that reference romantic and reductivist sensibilities. Works are slick, transparent, thick, thin and heavily layered. Process and points of inspiration are revealed as well as concealed. Evidence of touch or lack of touch contributes to and shapes the content of the work. Collectively, the work limns a cerebral entrance to an alternative place that is realized through re-contextualized media, nature, subjective trajectories, literature and architectural fragments – ultimately providing a platform for understanding a new narrative.”
