NYAB Event - Douglas Witmer "All Kinds of Ways to Your Garden"

Douglas Witmer "All Kinds of Ways to Your Garden"

Blank Space

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In his second exhibition with the gallery, Witmer continues to refine his ongoing investigation of color and surface in abstract painting.

With merely one or two delineated blocks of emphatic color positioned in relation to soft grey grounds, Witmer's canvases 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. The grey-stained grounds are made by cascading pigment onto a soaking wet surface. Upon closer inspection, the seemingly hard-edged colors 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 that the artist creates near the outer edges of the canvases.

On one hand, these works evoke certainty and solidity, and perhaps stillness, while on the other hand every element is kept light, actively in play, and up for consideration. Nothing is totally settled. Witmer 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."

The exhibition's title: "All Kinds of Ways to Your Garden," as well as the paintings' titles, are snippets of song lyrics that the artist jotted down while working in his studio. In his own words, the artist considers this process of reapplying found words in the context of paintings as a way of "further documenting my emotional experience of the work and also as an emotive invitation from myself to others." Witmer approaches painting as a relationship that values inquiry over conclusion. To this end, the exhibition features works, such as "The Sound of Your Name" and "Love is Natural and Real," that further this ongoing relationship while provoking inquiry.

[Image: Douglas Witmer "Guiding Light" (2012)]