Somerhill Gallery announces a solo exhibition of recent works by renowned painter John Beerman. There will be a special preview of the exhibition on Friday, October 17th from 5-7 PM to coincide with Third Friday Durham.The exhibition will open with a gallery reception on Saturday, October 18th from 5-8 PM. The public is invited and admission is free.

John Beerman’s prints, like his paintings, are meticulously crafted landscape visions which capture the essence of time, place and space. Whether views of the Hudson River, the southwest, or the eastern seaboard, Beerman’s subtleness is reminiscent of the luminist painters of the 19th century yet thoroughly contemporary in spirit and point of view. In a New York Times article published August 24, 2008, Beerman was quoted as seeing himself in the tradition of the Luminist offshoots of the Hudson River School. “They had a lot of sky, and subdued brushwork, so that the hand of the particular artist wasn’t so obvious,” said Beerman, “They had a quietude,” he added. “Not so much drama.”

Unlike his paintings, John Beerman’s works of art on paper are the result of a remarkable collaboration with Hudson River Editions, a collaboration both personal and professional. Hudson River Editions, a fine art press, was founded by master printer Sylvia Roth in 1981. John Beerman began to work with Sylvia Roth in 1983 and Beerman’s first Hudson River Editions were, appropriately, a series based on images of the Hudson River and surrounding landscape. Throughout John and Sylvia’s many collaborations, the color etchings and monoprints have gained in both virtuosity and technical complexity. The collaborations represent a symbiotic relationship, with John challenging Sylvia’s technical skill and Sylvia training John in new ways of layering color to build structure, depth and atmosphere.

John Beerman’s color etchings are complex undertakings, each requiring the printing of multiple plates on fine German etching paper. Broad bands of bright, often fluorescent and transparent inks are printed first, much in the way underpainting is built up on John’s canvases. The final aquatinted plates each carry parts of the image ­– a tree, clouds, or rolling hill, for example – and the colors become more subtle and muted. After the landscape has been printed, marbleized or gold leaf borders are added, an integral element in all of John Beerman’s work. The paper support, the framing elements, and the landscape image all interact to create prints which relate, though stand uniquely apart, from the painting.

Beerman's work is part of numerous public and private collections, including the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York; the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina; and being part of the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York. Beerman's paintings are also among the collection of the North Carolina Governor's mansion and the New York Governor’s mansion. Beerman has also been the recipient of many awards and commissions.

The exhibition will be from October 18, 2008 – November 14, 2008.

www.somerhill.com

*Please note: The map incorrectly shows us as being on the left side of the street. We are actually on the right side.