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David
Kessler is an extraordinary painter who has created
a unique art form that holds a viewers attention by
accentuating the paradox of the flat painted surface
with the visual illusion of depth and space.
Using a
perfected technique in the photo-realist tradition
developed over the past twenty-five years, Kessler
has created a series of spectacular waterscape
paintings that incorporate realistic imagery painted
over a surface of abraded and polished aluminum.
This combination of hybrid elements forces the
viewer to shift their perception to accommodate the
incongruity of light being reflected from the metal
surface, while at the same time being absorbed by
the painted areas. This reinforces the strange
visual perplexity of the paintings that are at the
same time realistic and holographic.
His
paintings have been exhibited internationally since
1977, with shows in Tokyo, Strasbourg, Chicago, Los
Angeles, Miami, Scottsdale, and New York. Kessler's
paintings are in the permanent collections of The
Strasbourg Contemporary Museum of Art, The Brooklyn
Museum, The Minnesota Museum of Art, The Museum of
the Rhode Island School of Design, The Santa Barbara
Museum, The Barrington Art Center, and others.
"As a painter, it is important for me to address the
concerns of painting - what has been done - and what
can I add to this. My work on aluminum is an attempt
to use the qualities of refracted light and to have
these qualities interact with the painting.
The completed image is produced both by refracted
light, created by the use of various wire brushes
and paint airbrushed in transparent layers. Within
this process about half the image is produced by
refracted light alone, simulating paint and about
half by paint.
The dual concerns of working with simulation:
refracted light simulating paint, and hybridization:
the use of aluminum, wire brushes and paint; are an
attempt to create an image working within some kind
of context that is post-modern - and I use that term
simply to mean after modern rather than against
modern." -David Kessler |
