ABOUT
Douglas Witmer (b. 1971) is an American artist based in Philadelphia. He is internationally known within the field of reductive geometric abstraction.
Witmer’s work manifests decades of inquiry into the materiality of the painted object through refined processes within the framework of reductive abstract painting. His elemental compositional structures are activated by sensuous color and various improvised gestural and incidental actions.
The subject is presence--establishing a visual place that offers someone an open invitation for a 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 introduces structure with flat housepainters’ brushes. And still other times he creates marks in gestural strokes or in ways where resulting marks will be unexpected or unanticipated, such as purposely touching wet paintings against one 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 around the world. Solo museum exhibitions include The Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart IN (2023) and The Cornell Fine Arts Museum of Rollins College in Winter Park, FL (2011). Other venues include: MoMA PS1, Minus Space, 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.
