Form/Space Atelier Program For December 2011
Exhibit Title: Current Projects
Exhibit Duration: December 7-30
Vernissage: December 7, 6PM
Sam Birchman exhibits oil on canvas paintings, well-drafted, with figuration and other imagery in 2011's Current Projects. The raw, ubiquitous portraits taken with Birchman’s iPhone are the inspiration for the compositions of Current Projects. This is the sixth exhibit of Sam Birchman’s work curated by Paul Pauper, dating back to 2007, and his fifth consecutive solo exhibit. Sam’ and his father Fred Birchman recently exhibited as part of a father-son exhibit that also included work by Spike Mafford and Mike Spafford, at Francine Seders Gallery. This organizing principle zeitgeist seems to be haunting Seattle of late, Curator Paul Pauper and son have co-exhibited in the 2010’s Mystic Sons of Morris Graves, 2011’s Gallery 206 and other collaborative exhibits.
About his own work, Sam says “I live and work in downtown Seattle. I received my BFA in Studio Painting from the Evergreen State College in 2004. I am mainly interested in faces and figures. I find that I need to have a living being in my paintings in order for them to feel complete, whether it be a human, an animal, or just a suggestion of one or the other. I prefer my spaces to be somewhat undefined. The setting is less important to me than the interaction between the figures on the canvas. The process of painting itself is what I truly enjoy, from stretching and priming the canvas to applying paint and seeing what happens and how I respond to it.” Sam keeps a studio in the Vain Hair Salon Building.
