For immediate release
AS THE RAIN IS FALLING
New Paintings by Bernd Haussmann
to Open January 19
at William Campbell Contemporary Art
FORT WORTH, TEXAS, January 2, 2019-
As the Rain is Falling, an
exhibition of new paintings by Bernd Haussmann, will be on display January 19 through February 16 at William Campbell Contemporary Art. An opening reception will be held Saturday, January 19, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The show will include more than a dozen new, large-scale paintings that harness the power of abstraction to engage viewers on visual, intellectual, and emotional levels.
As a whole, the pieces in
As the Rain is Falling address the elusive,
ephemeral moment of true presence that can result from an active, inspired dialogue between painting and viewer. With deft combinations of still swaths and heady spatters populating each canvas, Haussmann seeks to reach out to onlookers and spur an instant of acute awareness, not unlike the moment when rain begins to fall, when senses are at their most heightened and absorptive of atmospheric and spiritual energy. It is this magical, transitional time Haussmann is interested in capturing-the moment of "connectedness" between our internal musings and external surroundings.
He writes:
As the Rain is Falling
The mind is quiet
For a moment.
In unison with the nature of Now.
I am still for a moment. There is peace.
I am nature for a moment. United. In peace.
Everything is quiet for a moment. And still. Connected in peace.
Haussmann's nonrepresentational compositions consist of colorful, textural elements that abut and overtake, emerge and recede, and eventually coalesce within the picture plane. Amorphous strokes of color, organic lines, and freeform sprays evoke a sense of the primordial as they recall forces of nature that bring order to chaos, but also disrupt stagnant patterns. Ultimately, they reveal a deeper source, as if peering into the core of artistic, individual, and universal potential.
However, Haussmann's work is not simply an exploration of line, color, and texture. It serves as an invitation to dive in, deep below the surface, and experience the sensations brought about through seeing, thinking, and feeling-the sublime respite attained by a true connection with the art. Haussmann considers the artist's role as one of a provider, who initiates visual and sensory interactions through his work. For him, art, in its most significant iteration, emerges only through this conversation-one which he describes as a "democratic dialogue" between artwork and viewer. "It's not something you can put into words," he says.
Further, Haussmann views art not as a way to repair that which is
flawed, to entertain, or beautify, but as a conduit to opening oneself up to realizing what needs attention. In that vein, the artist employs the dynamism of abstraction to stimulate conversation through aesthetic response. With layers of pigment, he builds and reveals fundamental, elemental sensory experiences that inspire conversations and connections between art and viewer, and eventually, within the larger context of the world. "Art is an action not of hope, but of being, of opening up to what really is," says Haussmann. "Through that act of experiencing, we become more connected to ourselves and to the world."
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Long recognized for both his solo work and conceptual collaborations, Bernd Haussmann has exhibited art in numerous one-person and group exhibitions across the United States and abroad. Venues include galleries, nonprofit organizations, and art fairs in New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Atlanta, and the DFW Metroplex, among others. Internationally, he has shown work in Germany, Belgium, and Canada. Haussmann participates in many collaborations, among them the Video Sonic Project with the Media Institute of the University of Tuebingen; Darwin's Coral-One Ocean Project with OneWorldOcean; White-Out with Mote Marine and Conor Goulding in Sarasota, Florida; the Third Image photo project with Rick Ashley; and the Nucleus Project with Werner Trotter. His many video projects can be found on YouTube and Vimeo.
Haussmann's work has appeared in many publications, among them
Art Ltd.,
Artnewsinternational,
Art New England, the
Boston Globe, Fort Worth's
Star-Telegram,
New American Paintings,
Metropolitan Home,
This Old House
(25th Anniversary Designer Show House), and
House Beautiful. His art can be found in many public and private collections as well, including those of Alliance Capital and the Ritz Carlton in Boston; the Hyatt Regency and Xerox Corporations in Rochester, New York; Miami Beach's Fontainebleau; Nordstrom; the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, Massachusetts; and the Stadtmuseum in Tübingen, Germany, to name a few. In Texas, his work appears in the collections of the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi, the Longview Museum of Fine Art, and Fort Worth's Healthpoint Corporation.
Haussmann served as artist-in-residence at the Broad Institute at Harvard and MIT from 2012 to 2015, and worked on DNA Song, a project with the Berklee School of Music, from 2013 to 2014. He currently teaches at the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM), and the Montserrat College of Art, all in Massachusetts. Before that, he was a mentor at Lesley University in Boston, the Art Institute of Boston, and the New Hampshire Institute of Art.
Born in Tübingen, Germany, Bernd Haussmann became a US resident in 1994. He and his wife, Anne, split their time between Massachusetts and western Maine, where they run a 450-acre nature project.
ABOUT THE GALLERY
Founded in 1974 by William and Pam Campbell, William Campbell Contemporary Art exhibits high-quality contemporary art in a variety of media, including paintings, works on paper, mixed-media constructions, photography, prints, ceramics, and sculpture. By exhibiting nationally recognized artists, along with new and emerging talent, the gallery aims to nurture an awareness and appreciation of the exciting diversity found in contemporary art.
CONTACT
William Campbell Contemporary Art
4925 Byers Avenue
Fort Worth, Texas 76107
817.737.9566
Tuesday-Friday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. and Saturday, 11:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.
