Biography

 Douglas Witmer (b. 1971) is an American artist based in Philadelphia. He is internationally known within the field of reductive geometric abstraction.

Over the course of the past two decades, Witmer has steadily pursued a personal inquiry into the materiality of the painted object, refining his processes to a set of consciously chosen, direct and economical actions. His ongoing interest is making a visual situation that invites someone into an open but very personal experience of seeing and feeling. 

In his recent work, Witmer applies the paint in watercolor-thin layers. From start to finish on a painting, his interactions with the surface are completely additive. Sometimes a wash is cascaded down the entire face of the painting. Other times Witmer establishes rectilinear structure with flat housepainters brushes. And still other times he creates marks via incidental means, such as touching one wet painting against another. The highly fluid nature of this painting process sets up challenging dynamics of control and release. And Witmer coaxes a wide range of emotional results from his basic approaches.

Witmer has said: “In the 21st century, I see my work as offering a clear alternative in a visual culture dominated by speed, layering, and complexity. I do not believe my work requires any prequisite knowledge beyond what you bring to it. My hope is that it can activate the sense that you simply feel yourself seeing. I like to think of that kind of moment as clear, pure, innocent, and solitary. And if you can get to it, then you have, in a way, started an experiential engine for yourself, and your thoughts can begin to move in uniquely personal directions.” 

His work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions. In 2011 an exhibition spanning ten years of the artist’s work was mounted at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL. Other venues include: MoMA PS1, The Curator Gallery, and The Painting Center (all NYC), The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Philadelphia), Hemphill Fine Arts (Washington, DC), ICON Contemporary Art (Brunswick, ME), The Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Gray Contemporary (Houston), Gebert Contemporary (Santa Fe), The University of Maryland, The University of Dayton, Galerie Biesenbach (Germany), ParisCONCRET (France), Sydney Non-Objective (Australia), and Sol del Rio Arte Contemporanea (Guatemala City). His work is held in the collections of The Woodmere Art Museum, The Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska, The Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia and The Fellowship of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, as well as numerous corporate and private collections internationally.

His work has been documented in publications by The Woodmere Museum of Art, The Free Library of Philadelphia, The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University, and The University of Manitoba press, and his exhibitions have been reviewed in The Washington Post, Two Coats of Paint, and Art New England, and other arts periodicals and websites.

Witmer has also curated numerous exhibitions in the United States mostly centered on themes and issues within the discipline of abstract painting.

Witmer holds a B.A. from Goshen College and an M.F.A. from The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.