Gabriele Evertz / Sanford Wurmfeld. Polychromy

About

For three decades, Gabriele Evertz has examined the “pioneering problem of color” and its transformative effect on the viewer. In her new paintings, she applies color in spontaneously conceived sequences made in real time at the very moment of painting. Her paintings continue to employ and expand upon her singular color system of twelve highly-saturated hues, which she juxtaposes against an extensive array of light to dark gray values and metallic pigments. Evertz’s paintings interweave perfectly plumb, vertical stripes with lines that taper as they reach the top and bottom edges of the canvas, which are nearly impossible to perceive. The resulting paintings present a barrage of visual information that moves color and form in and out of sequence and symmetry causing the eye to move through undulating, pulsating spaces. Color and line appear immaterial, filling the viewer with a tremendous sense of aliveness.

Working across a wide array of media, from abstract painting to installation to filmmaking, Sanford Wurmfeld has exhaustively investigated the subject of color for more than fifty years through its essential qualities of hue, value, and saturation. In his paintings, Wurmfeld mixes and modifies colors empirically by eye without relying on any supporting scientific or mathematical system, which he then overlays onto layered grids of shifting alignment. Wurmfeld believes the perception of color to be a highly subjective experience and he openly embraces differing, individualized responses on the part of the viewer. He states, “We each bring to the paintings some kind of baggage that is far from universal, and so each of these paintings has a different emotional content. I mean emotional as an almost visceral response, rather than a feeling you would name with words. I recognize that it’s there, but I don’t think it’s something that I’m particularly controlling for the viewer. I’m just creating something that creates a kind of visceral response in me.”