David Raymond reviews a recent exhibition of paintings by Mark Wethli and Douglas Witmer at ICON Contemporary Art, Brunswick, Maine.
Raymond writes that Wethli and Witmer "share a painting language developed in visually intimate spaces. Both present frontal forms, their rectangularity parallel to the picture plane. Witmer’s images absorb the gaze, whereas Wethli’s have an action that mirrors the looking of the viewer, imparting an unexpected looking back. Both painters, by including framing within their imagery, establish coded screens—entryways as well as perimeters—within which our seeing is directed, and through which meaning is negotiated."
