Douglas Witmer

Acrylic on paper; 7.5" x 5.5"
Framed with archival materials; 12" x 10"

www.douglaswitmer.com

Artist statement:

I am offering two works for the UCAL "Share The Love Gala" which serve as a bookends to my career thus far. The 1997 painting on canvas "Sgreen" was exhibited in my very first solo exhibition in Philadelphia, which was presented at the University City Arts League in May of that year. The title is simply a play on words, combining "Screen" and "Green," and using as inspiration the fresh bright greens of early spring when foliage is just beginning to appear on the trees. The smaller work on paper is from 2020 and I call it a "drawing." For over 20 years I have regularly used the 7.5 x 5.5 inch format on paper. I call everything I make on paper this size a drawing, even though they share the identical media as other works. "Drawing" has become for me a mindset more than a product. My drawing mindset is both a "recitation of mantras" via techniques and compositional strategies, like a musician practicing scales, as well as a format for complete improvisation. The two works are obviously related in color.

Artist bio:

Douglas Witmer moved to University City in 1995 and has lived and maintained his studios in the neighborhood ever since.

Since his first solo show in Philadelphia at the University City Arts League in 1997, Douglas has steadily pursued a personal inquiry into the materiality of the painted object, refining his processes, and becoming internationally recognized within the field of reductive abstract painting. His elemental compositional structures are activated by sensuous color and various improvised gestural and incidental actions. His ongoing interest is fine tuning a visual presence that offers someone an open invitation for a personal experience of seeing and feeling.

Witmer's work has been exhibited at venues such as The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Philadelphia), Hemphill Fine Arts (Washington DC), Sydney Non-Objective (Australia), ParisCONCRET (France), Gray Contemporary (Houston), Galerie Biesenbach (Germany), The Painting Center (NYC), MoMA PS1, and numerous others. 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.

Witmer earned his B.A. from Goshen College (Indiana) and an M.F.A. from The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.