Douglas Witmer
Thursday, January 08, 2009
news : "joseph's coat" exhibition
(Evite...click to enlarge)
I'm happy to announce this upcoming project, which is opening very soon right here in my West Philadelphia neighborhood:
The details:
Joseph's Coat
February 5-28, 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday, Feb 5, 6-8pm
Artist's talk: Sunday, Feb 8, 11:30am
The exhibition is open M-F, 10-2, also directly following Sunday services, and by appointment.
The Philadelphia Cathedral
3723 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia
215-386-0234
www.philadelphiacathedral.org
"Joseph's Coat" is a group of new large paintings intended for the Cathedral, to be installed unstretched and flowing. The project takes its title from the Biblical story of Jacob, who gave a fabulous multicolor tunic to Joseph, his youngest and most-favored son (Genesis, chapter 37). Witmer's series does not attempt to follow or in any way illustrate the narrative of the tragic family story that ensues. Rather, he uses his early childhood memories of the story of the coat and the idea of a gift as beginning points for a new exploration of color.
Labels: exhibitions, my work, news, sketchbooks
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Friday, December 05, 2008
interview at "visual discrepancies"
Brent Hallard, in Tokyo, has just published a short interview with me related to my current work. Please have a look.
Labels: critical reviews, my work, news
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Monday, November 17, 2008
installation views : today is the day
Here are some installation views of my current exhibition, "Today is the Day." All work is 2008, black gesso and acrylic on canvas. The smaller works are 40 x 33 inches, the larger works are in the 4 x 5 foot range.
L-R: Silver Rider, New Drifter, Indian Summer, Kentucky Coffee
New Drifter, Indian Summer, Kentucky Coffee
Indian Summer, Kentucky Coffee, How Soon Is Now?
New Drifter, Indian Summer, Kentucky Coffee, How Soon Is Now?
Every Thought About You Takes A Rest, They Turn Me
They Turn Me, a peek into the next gallery with work by Alexis Kuhr, Silver Rider, New Drifter
They Turn Me, work by Alexis Kuhr, Silver Rider
Silver Rider, New Drifter
Once again here are the vitals on the show:
Today is the Day | New Paintings
Through December 7
44-02 23rd Street, Long Island City, NYC
Labels: exhibitions, my work
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Tuesday, May 06, 2008
down on the farm
I spent a long weekend painting at the retreat center that is on the farm of my high school art teacher. I'll expand on this post with more images later in the week, but for now, enjoy the above.
Quoting myself here, in an interview with Chris Ashley back in 2005, "To a degree, I have always been an observational painter in that things I see or fragments from things I see undergo a process of distillation in the studio."
Labels: my work, paintings, studio views and work in progress
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Thursday, March 13, 2008
new drawings
(click each to enlarge)
In 2006 I began to work with some old school-grade tablet paper someone gave me. It's a unique surface. Responsive, but very fragile. I have an understanding with it. Chris Ashley and I also have used this paper a lot for our collaborations. I currently have a new batch going. The images above comprise drawings made from 2006 through a few days ago. (Incidentally, this group also makes up my application to the 2008 Fleisher Challenge...wish me luck!)
Labels: drawing, my work, paper
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Wednesday, March 05, 2008
"considerable" at university of dayton
...just got these installation photos from Jeffrey Cortland Jones. As you can see my work has been given a sculptural treatment. Here's the link to my post with the announcement for the show.
Labels: exhibitions, my work
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Sunday, September 23, 2007
the last day of summer
Some of you know that my job is being the co-owner of The Green Line Cafe, located a few doors down the street from where I live. In late August, I found myself with a small open period of time between exhibits I had scheduled for the cafe. So I decided to fill it by hanging a few of my pieces there. It was the first time I displayed my own work at the cafe. It wasn't really a show. Just a place for a few of my paintings to be for a time. Work like mine is often displayed in fairly pristine environs. So it was good to see these paintings existing in a heavily trafficked public space, in the mix of a lot of other visual information, music, conversation, activity. To me they felt "domesticated"...what I wish for them...to be in relationship to places where people (not viewers) live.
One of the things I was particularly interested in seeing was the paintings with the stained glass windows in the space. When we renovated the cafe space just over five years ago, we restored the uppper set of windows, adding color. I chose and arranged the colors. You might say these windows have become another one of my favorite things. The ideas of transparency and clarity have been prominent in my color and they probably come in part from looking at the light coming through these windows.
Something about taking this work down on Friday afternoon, in the golden light of late September, I felt the summer end for me.
Labels: Green Line Cafe, miscellany, my favorite things, my work, paintings
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Monday, July 02, 2007
news : group show in australia
Untitled, 2006. Gesso and acrylic on unstretched linen, 13.5 x 11 inches (34 x 28 cm)
This piece is soon en route to Sydney, Australia as part of the group exhibition Escape from New York at Sydney Non-Objective. The exhibition is organized by Minus Space, and opens August 3. Each of the artists in the show will be represented by a recent work, and also by an open "letter" to the audience in Sydney. I believe Minus Space will catalogue the entire project on line soon. I'll post the that which made up my "letter" after the show is actually open.
Meanwhile, this unstretched linen piece is the only one that survives from a group I started in 2006 during my residency at St. Mary's College of Maryland. It's kind of a seed idea. I think about it a lot. See the group in progress here, here, and here. Why this one works for me and the others do not...well, that's the question that I've been mulling over for nearly a year and a half now!
Labels: exhibitions, my work, news, paintings, studio views and work in progress
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Thursday, June 28, 2007
lost & found in the studio
I've done some major reorganizing in the studio over the past weeks. This is a little...I don't know what to call it...that I made in the third grade. It surfaces from time to time when I least seem to expect it.
"Anything can be Something"...a kind of mantra...my own voice speaking to me from the past.
Labels: children's art, miscellany, my work
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Wednesday, May 30, 2007
news : corporate sale
Above: Garden Spot, 2006, Manitou, 2006, Monk, 2006, Untitled (brown),2006, Capitolo, 2005. All works acrylic on canvas, 30 x 36 inches.
(click each image to enlarge)
These five recent paintings have entered the corporate collection of Duane Morris LLP. Late last year, the law firm also purchased a set of 10 works on paper from the late 1990s. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Duane Morris LLP has a terrific collection (there's a great Leichtenstein sculpture in front of their office here), and offices all over the world. I was told the 10 works on paper were headed for Singapore. These five canvases may be ending up either in Philadelphia or Baltimore.
Labels: my work, news, paintings
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Friday, January 05, 2007
across the borderline
[Update 05 January...Here's the official evite for Across the Borderline (designed by yours truly).]
Collaborative drawings by Chris Ashley and Douglas Witmer, mixed media on paper, 2006.
Chris Ashley and I have been collaborating for the last several months on a variety of drawing. I say a "variety of drawing" because it that feels more accurate than talking about the products, or the "drawings," even though that's what we're ultimately producing. We're scheduled to exhibit our collaborative work at the University of Dayton in January (see details below).
Were documenting the process here, at: www.acrosstheborderline.com
[Update: I should mention we're posting new images to this site frequently as we head into the exhibition.]
We're doing simple back-and-forth exchanges of work. We're working on a variety of non-precious surfaces...cheap papers particularly. We're doing different things with size, and format. We're both experimenting a lot, allowing ourselves to go outside the "boundaries" we have each set for our individual work. For me, the working mindset is close to child-like. That said, it's not easy. Opening yourself and your processes up like this can bring out exciting possibilities, but it also has a way of revealing your basic visual assumptions to yourself. This can represent a real challenge.
The gallery at the University of Dayton is on the small side, essentially a U shape, but with shorter walls on each end and a long wall in the middle. At this point we're envisioning exhibiting a selection of our individual works on each end with the larger wall being hung in a free-form way, likely a hundred or more pieces, to be determined collaboratively on-site.
Labels: collaborations, drawing, exhibitions, my work
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