FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Gregory
Kammerer. Cataumet Waters, oil on panel An exhibition of New Paintings by Gregory
Kammerer July 2 – Gregory
Kammerer’s new paintings reflect his continuing exploration of atmosphere,
mood, and form as elements of memory, as reverent and subtle reference
to what we already know of land and water, place and love. Land and
water are always beginnings for Kammerer, but the intention is to
remind us, not of the precarious temporal, but of the lasting, mysterious
promise in nature. These paintings call up an eternal human dream
of great emotional power, the longing for paradise, that archetypal
place free from conflict, suffering and deprivation. It
is a bold and ambitious intention, made more possible, perhaps, by
Kemmerer’s self-taught relationship with painting. As
he says, “There is no baggage. I
don’t know the rules.” His self-directed study has led him to those
artists whose visual language resonates with his own – Richard Diebenkorn,
whose early abstract paintings, with many thin layers of semi transparent
color, could evoke suggestions of atmosphere or landscape – and especially,
Mark Rothko, whose pared down form, open fields of color, and reluctance
to create boundaries are reflected in Kammerer’s wish to create a
visual experience that does not manipulate the viewer, that keeps
it open. “I don’t want to get to the end,” he explains. “I
always want to be able to see something new in the painting.” In
the last ten years, Kammerer has given up working from photographs
and relies solely on his experience in nature. Equally as important
for Kammerer as any studio time are hours spent rowing a single scull
on nearby rivers and ponds; images of water, clouds, reflections,
and darkness get logged in and stored for reference. The resulting
atmospheric paintings convey emotion and act as symbolic works rather
than minute descriptions of specific locales. These new paintings,
balanced and still, with their muted tones and diffused light, move
closer toward visual abstraction and the solace of the lost harmonious
world. Kammerer’s
paintings can be seen at the gallery and at www.leftbankgallery.com. |
