Gage Opdenbrouw – Paint it Black: Paint Over It, Scrape It Back (Online); Sunday, December 18, 2022

Date: Sunday, December 18, 2022
Time: 11:30 AM-1:00 PM Pacific Time (2:30-4:00 PM Eastern Time/7:30-9:00 PM London Time)

Gage Opdenbrouw often finds himself compelled to edit and consolidate forms in his work by painting, tearing down and rebuilding. Through a process of repetition and simplification, revision and editing and adjusting painted shapes as they relate to one another, a distillation can occur — a space for paint to be paint, observation to deepen, and for improvisation to take on structure, weight, and most of all, feeling.

In this talk and live demo, Opdenbrouw will discuss these processes and share some of his own work, as well as that of other painters, both historical and contemporary, who make deep use of this response and strategy in their work.

“A deep thematic thread runs through all of my work, it’s a ‘vanitas’ sort of message, to take the time to be present, to notice the magic of noticing, the richness of what’s right in front of us. I think that there is something radical in making work that is intimate in scale and quiet in its content and its aims–it strikes me as a tonic, an antidote, for our times, which are increasingly dehumanized, and in which people are living lives that are increasingly disembodied, mediated by a screen, and constantly stimulated. My art is about connecting with this world, this moment, as it is, as deeply as possible.” www.gageopdenbrouw.com