Artist Eric Reinemann's works displayed

May 08, 2008 04:00 am

— Eric Reinemann's art demands one-on-one time.
Even still, the multi-hued shapes shift, depending on the viewer's mindset, the light and shadows in the Haslett Gallery inside the Evergreen Valley Nursing Home.
His exhibition "Current" is comprised of 18 works, paintings and constructions he has created over the last three years. The show's title references the "integration, the flow of energy through time and space" and his diverse bodies of work.
CONCEPTUAL CHANGE
Reinemann graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio art from Plattsburgh State in 2000. He earned a Master of Fine Arts in painting from the University of Oregon.
In his artist statement, he writes:
"Three years ago, began a conceptual change in my work. I broke from the confines of a rectangle and started to physically construct the relationships I found in my figurative drawings. The idea that a painting could identify its own boundaries began to have implications beyond the making of an aesthetic object. Slowly, my process became engaged with the discipline of thinking. It has grown to a point where I now feel that every experience important enough for self reflection guides the decision-making process of the most recent perceptual abstractions."
The title of his paintings are not related to content but help him keep track of where and when he created the works.
"I try to keep them untitled," said Reinemann, who lives in Malone and teaches summer sessions at Plattsburgh State. "I want people to spend some time figuring it out, basically."
ART UNLOCKED
Painting was something he figured out slowly. When he first came to Plattsburgh State, he studied criminal justice.
"That definitely was not the right path. A year in, I hit a big wall, and I needed something to get out of it. At the time, I was taking a photography class. Then, I took a painting class."
Peter Russom's Painting II class unlocked art in Reinemann.
"During that time, we started to mix paint. Watching the paint mix on the 18-by-24-inch palette, watching them integrate took all the worries all out of my head. It was something I could abstractly understand and seemed very natural. It stuck with me."
His wood constructions make up his oldest work. While working on them, he started drawing figurative elements that he transferred back to canvas. At the University of Oregon, he experienced conflict between the concept-oriented curriculum pushed over aesthetic execution. Now, he sees the value in what he once resisted.
ENERGY FLOW
In his statement, he writes:
"Currently, I am working strictly from observation and cannot make anything that looks like anything I know. I have to find ways of working with the idea that information constantly enters and leaves my field of vision. I know a tabletop is rectangular, and the objects on the tabletop break up the rectangle, but the process of seeing a tabletop involves watching a constant flow of energy. Shapes and angles change with any movement; I cannot visually see a solid shape until I draw a line that gives it identity. The process of completing a painting involves a constant building and destroying of relationships until a visual harmony is achieved. This harmony needs to exude a visual energy; this energy expresses the experience of what it took to understand how to make a painting of what I was seeing."
Reinemann wants viewers to experience his work to spark their imagination and dialogue. In his newest work, his palette is not as dense.
"So the drawing beneath it can be seen," he said. "That's the most recent development. I'm watering down the paint so I can see through it intentionally at times. I'm embracing more of a transparent palette, so I can see the process happening."
E-mail Robin Caudell at:
rcaudell@pressrepublican.com

Photos

Untitled from Tularosa Series by Eric Reinemann.