April 13 through May11, 2024
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 13, 6-9 pm
In 1822, fur trapper Alexis St. Martin got shot in the stomach. A Dr. William Beaumont saved St. Martin’s life … but kept the wound open for a decade so he could study the human digestive system.
In a new series of paintings at Bermudez Projects gallery in Cypress Park, Stephen Seemayer is at once shooter, trapper, doctor, and artist. Each of the 36 works in Seemayer’s Dark Side of Paradise are meditations on the pandemic, with the flesh of each painting pierced with a hole that looks into another world.
Seemayer says, “When Covid-19 locked us down, and the millions of fatalities were recounted with the weather on the nightly news, the enormity of the threat against the human race became painfully obvious. It was also a terrifying prospect that the combination of a microscopic agent and human stupidity could imperil the lives of my wife and our family.”
So, he began painting these triptychs.
The imagery: monuments of ancient civilizations, mystic creatures, Indonesian shadow puppets, Pan piping as a skeleton dances, organic swirls that could be clouds of Big Bang dust or images of humans in a funhouse mirror. The themes: creative and destructive forces of nature, mortality, man’s place in the universe. All done in blacks and grays, he says, “to strip the color from our world and force an examination of the dark side of paradise.”
Crucially, each painting has a hole in it, through which the viewer can glimpse another painting beneath, “drawing the viewer near until the bigger picture can no longer be seen.” Like old Doc Beaumont peering into the musket hole and seeing a new world of wonder, we ask: Which one is really the big picture? Seemayer says, “I explore the dichotomy of our own sense of importance versus the vastness of the cosmos and our relative insignificance in that larger panorama.” (Purchasers may open the back of their work to see all the second painting.)
Over 40 years, Seemayer has always confronted his audience with the question of what it means to be human in a dehumanizing society, whether at established galleries or in the films Young Turks (2013) and Tales of the American (2018), in which he and his wife Pamela Wilson documented disappearing downtown Los Angeles.
Julian Bermudez, owner of Bermudez Projects, now nearing its 15th anniversary of presenting dynamic artworks by contemporary American artists, says of Dark Side of Paradise:
“These paintings will leave you awestruck. In each of his triptychs, Seemayer’s multi-layered storytelling will have your eye crisscrossing through art history, popular culture, literature, science, space and time. You’ll find yourself discovering new aspects with each and every viewing. And, you won’t want to stop.”
In an essay written specially for this new collection, Mat Gleason (yes, that Mat Gleason) writes, “There comes a recognition by an artist that this short interlude between eternal unconsciousness can be documented beyond language and cultural convention. Some will paint murals, others sculpt metal, and here the solution is the fabrication of a portable object that dialogues with those who have already passed along this spinning wet rock. More importantly, though, these pictures are meant to last into the future, fabricated with great care and accessible to the sensitive and the informed.”
Speaking of oblivion, Seemayer says, “When I started painting them, I wondered whether anyone would see these works. I had no way of knowing whether galleries would ever open again or if we’d have to live with isolation for the indefinite future. I wouldn’t say the paintings helped me get through the pandemic, but I definitely would say the pandemic helped me get through the paintings. Lockdown forced me to deeply focus my ideas and gave me the time to create these images.”
Julian Bermudez says, “When Seemayer invited me to see his new body of work, I was really excited. I mean, this is Stephen Seemayer, an LA icon. Once I saw them, I thought, ‘Dude! These are stunning!’ The layers of imagery; the hand fabrication of nearly everything; and the energy makes for powerful works! People are seriously going to be enthralled by these paintings. And, my gallery gets to show them? Absolutely!”
Stephen Seemayer (American, b. 1954) is a Los Angeles-born painter, filmmaker and performance artist. In a career spanning more than 40 years, he has mounted performances and exhibitions at galleries and museums across the United States. Using imagery drawn from anatomy, archaeology and arson, Seemayer confronts his audience with the question of what it means to be human in a dehumanizing society.
