Troposphere On View May 11 – June 24, 2023

April 26, 2023 – Hollis Taggart is pleased to present Troposphere, the Vienna-based artist André

Hemer’s second solo show with the gallery. Continuing his ongoing engagement with nature, the nine

new canvases and new video work in the exhibition reflect the artist’s deep study of the sky as well as

his fascination with documenting light. New to this body of work is Hemer’s experimentation with

oval-shaped canvases, which, combined with his masterful fusion of digital media and painting,

create a stunning portal-like effect of bursting open his iridescent compositions of glowing sunset

colors to the viewer. Troposphere will be on view on the second floor of Hollis Taggart from May 11

through June 24, 2023, with an opening reception on Thursday, May 11, from 5-8PM.

André Hemer (b. 1981, New Zealand) has honed a practice that explores the intersections between

digital media and painting. His interest in sampling and transacting digital media – including

photographs, digital scans, and film taken in various locations – is born out of a desire to synthesize

the concerns of the post-internet age with more traditional methods and techniques. Hemer’s process

often involves scanning physical objects, such as three-dimensional paint forms or flora and fauna, en

plein air to capture these objects against the sky and their surrounding environments. The resulting

scans are printed on canvas and function as an underlayer onto which paint is applied or the original

sculpted paint is overlaid, creating a dialogue between material and image.

Unlike Hemer’s previous bodies of work which used source material from one location over brief

moments of time, the works in Trophosphere are amalgamations of images of the sky from various

places the artist has worked over the past year, including New Zealand, Sicily, Thailand, Indonesia,

Vienna, and New York. Reflecting Hemer’s ongoing fixation with capturing how light changes over

time and space, Hemer has now collapsed these variables into ethereal canvases that transcend these

specificities and offer universal skyscapes.

While in Italy, Hemer spent time considering the intertwining of painting, light, and architecture

during the Renaissance, and was impacted by the theatricality of the art and architectural spaces

from that period. Offering a heightened contrast of the close-up foreground of flora and paint against

the scanned ambient background skies, the oval-shaped works in Troposphere transmute into virtual

windows and allude to these ceiling frescoes and shaped canvases of the Renaissance. Hemer’s work

has also become more representational, with the artist’s digital en plein air process more apparent in

Troposphere than in previous works.

For the month before the exhibition’s opening, Hemer has been working from a studio in the

Brooklyn Navy Yard, enabling him to incorporate the scenes and sounds of New York City into his

newest work. Troposphere also premieres a new video work that includes sound captured at the Navy

Yard, from birdsong to the ambient noise of the former shipbuilding hub.

“For my generation, the primary concern has been the way in which digital media and interfaces have

affected our way of being in the world,” says Hemer. “The complexity of transacting our ideas through

multiplicities of form is ironically what has always bought me back to painting as a medium through

which to express those ideas—perhaps because these ‘old’ objects have a wonderful way of capturing

complexity in a simpler form. Troposphere corresponds to the way in which I see our way of being

and seeing materiality in the contemporary age; where the constant transaction between digital and

physical materiality is what constitutes a new way of seeing (and being) in the world.”

About Hollis Taggart

Founded in 1979, Hollis Taggart presents significant works of American art, showcasing the trajectory of

American art movements from the Hudson River School to American Modernism and the Post-War and

Contemporary eras. Its program is characterized by a deep commitment to scholarship and bringing to the fore

the work of under-recognized artists. The gallery has sponsored several catalogue raisonné projects, most

recently for the American Surrealist artist Kay Sage, and has been instrumental in advancing knowledge of such

artists as Alfred Maurer, Arthur B. Carles, and more recently, Theodoros Stamos, Marjorie Strider, and Michael

(Corinne) West. In the summer of 2019, the gallery announced the formal expansion of its primary market

business and focus on the presentation of contemporary work. It continues to expand its roster of

contemporary artists, focusing on emerging and mid-career talents. With more than 40 years of experience,

Hollis Taggart is widely recognized by collectors and curators for its leadership, expertise, and openness, on

matters of art history, market trends and opportunities.

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For press inquiries, please contact Aga Sablinska at aga.sablinska@gmail.com or 862-216-6485.