• James Ulmer
• Lamar Peterson

THIS IS THE WAY

THIS IS THE WAY: JAMES ULMER & LAMAR PETERSON

25.05.2023 — 16.06.2023
STOCKHOLM | HOSPITALET

Carl Kostyál is delighted to present a dual exhibition of American painters Lamar Petersson (b. 1974, St Petersburg, Florida, USA) and James Ulmer (b. 1981, Philadelphia, PA, USA). Admirers of one another’s practice, the two artists have unique approaches to image making but converge in their play with a pared-down, quasi abstract approach to the figure in painting, born of a deep engagement with contemporary media, both pre and post the digital era.

For over twenty years, Peterson has painted a wide range of subjects from cartoon landscapes populated by African American suburbanites to surreal portraits of Michael Jackson, often employing framing devices. Within all his various constructions, Peterson continually evokes a transformation or disfiguration as he depicts young African American men and women in our contemporary moment in time. His quasi-abstract figure and simplified forms are pared down to raw emotion suggesting elements of strength, violence, and vulnerability.

James Ulmer’s paintings utilize a rudimentary vocabulary that is both simple and universal. In works depicting people, animals and landscapes, the artist often employs a bold palette to explore depth, form and perspective within a flat surface. Ulmer renders childlike elements with sophistication as well as a minimalist restraint.

BIOGRAPHIES 

James Ulmer received a BFA in Illustration and Design from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2005 and has had solo exhibitions at The Pit in Los Angeles, California (2022); V1 Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark (2022); The Hole in New York City (2021); Marvin Gardens in New York City (2021); and PmAm Gallery in London, UK (2021); among others. Group exhibitions include Chart Gallery, New York City (2021); Primary, Miami, Florida (2021); Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, New York City (2020); Galerie Kornfeld in Berlin, Germany (2019); Carl Kostyál Gallery, Malmö, Sweden (2019); Eighteen Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark (2019); and Salon 94 in New York City (2016); among others. The artist lives and works in Queens, New York.

Lamar Peterson (born 1974 in St. Petersburg, Florida) received his MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2001. He has had previous solo exhibitions at The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York; Rochester Arts Center, Minnesota; Orlando Museum of Art, Florida; University Art Museum at SUNY, Albany; Deitch Projects, New York; and Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis, MN.  He has exhibited in numerous group shows including the Fifth International SITE Santa Fe Biennial 2004, Santa Fe, NM; The Drawing Center, New York, NY; The Kemper Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; the Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY, Oakland University Art Gallery, Rochester, MI, Mennello Museum of American Art, Orlando, FL; Black Pulp curated by William Villalongo and Mark Thomas Gibson at the IPCNY, New York and Yale University Art Gallery. Peterson is an Associate Professor of Drawing & Painting at the University of Minnesota. This is his first exhibition at Carl Kostyál. 

JAMES ULMER 

Why paint? 

I have been painting and drawing my entire life. As a child, copying cartoons and comic books felt good– it gave me pleasure and a form of escape. Today, as an artist, it is a mental therapy that continues to provide those same paths to escape and pleasure, and a vehicle of translation for my ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

Can you describe in detail your process when composing and making your work?

I typically start work on a painting from a sketchbook drawing. A quick contour line-drawing helps me understand the composition’s shapes and forms. Next, I make a more detailed sketch on Photoshop, which I then project onto a canvas and transfer with graphite. This starts the actual painting process. I often layer the paint repeatedly to build flat and opaque colour surfaces, constructing both the positive and negative shapes until the work is complete.

Are you telling a story in your painting?

I’m not telling a specific story with a painting. It is personal, but I’m at the same time, building something broad and emblematic that communicates a certain thought, sense, or feeling.

What questions do you ask yourself when painting?

I am always problem solving while constructing a painting. The flat shapes of colour and perspective– or the lack thereof– it all needs to work together. The line and placement are important. I’ll consider certain elements of the composition. Do I add? Or subtract?

What, if any, do you feel your relationship to abstraction to be?

I think of my paintings as both abstract and figurative. The two meet somewhere in the breakdown of form, and the flattening of colour and shape.

Do you see the forms and figures in your work to be signifiers for something else?

Maybe subconsciously? I’m not even sure I understand why I paint what I paint. I suppose there is an idea of fantasy and escape and trying to understand what it is to be a person on this planet.

What is the evolution /  backstory to this particular series of paintings you have made?

Many of the paintings in this show portray two figures, embracing in an abstracted landscape. I want to convey a theme of love, and companionship, perhaps an image of my own family life, raising a son with my wife, while reflecting on the past and future.

I was also looking at a lot of reference images from various printed materials that I have been collecting over the years, such as record covers, comics, Japanese manga and old advertisements. I was listening to a lot of music while in my studio and that was a big inspiration. I became interested in a genre called library music. These were records that were produced as a type of stock or background music and then leant out by the record labels to TV, radio, and film projects during the 1970s and 1980s. These records are made up of mostly instrumental tracks with titles like ‘Soft Moods for Romantic Sequences’ ‘ or  ‘Nature’s World.’ I found both the music and the album covers that went with it very compelling. There is this simplistic broad idea of emotion and theme with these records that I really found a connection to in my own work.

What relationship do you have to other artists of your generation?

I’m not sure If I fall into any certain camp? But I do think my generation’s unique access to information and technology plays a big role in how art is being made and processed. Having grown up in the 1980s and 1990s, I do believe there we all share a certain common connection with popular culture.

Do you feel any particular allegiance or kinship with artists of previous generations and if so why?

I’m not sure if it’s a kinship, but there are many artists who inspire me. Painters, such as Donald Baechler, Walter Swennen, and John Wesley. The underground comics of Teruhiko Yumura and Gary Panter have had a big impact on me. For me, these artists are a bit idiosyncratic in their approach to art-making. In all their work, there is a graphic element, and a resonate underlying psychological effect.

What role has the digital played, if any, in the development of your practice?

I plan out my paintings in Photoshop, a tool that shows me how to translate my line drawings into a painting with flat shapes and colours.

How would you describe your palette and what motivates your choice of colour?

I use a very limited palette of primary and secondary colours. My work is very graphic. I use bright, opaque colour to achieve a certain pop effect that I am after.

What chimes with you about Lamar’s works for this show?

I believe we are working with a similar colour palette. Bright reds and blues– we share themes of happiness, and an underlying sense of mortality. We both work with the figure as the primary compositional focus, placed in nature, or a landscape. Ultimately, I feel that we are both expressing a sense of emotion, and of living a human existence.

LAMAR PETERSON

Why paint?

I paint to stay sane. Making art helps me process the world around me and all its upheavals. Painting allows me a way to express myself when words fail me. My paintings deconstruct themes drawn from popular culture, personal histories, and the ideal of the American dream.

Can you describe in detail your process when composing and making your work?

My process begins with drawing and thumbnail sketches. I often use the internet to find source images for parts of what I’m trying to accomplish, along with a library of resource materials such as coloring books and children’s picture books, which I have accumulated over the years. Once I have a composition sketched that I’m happy with, I begin scaling up the sketch onto canvas and then begin painting. Some paintings take weeks, others months.

Are you telling a story in your painting?

No. I’m trying to create a mood or a feeling or reflect an emotion that mirrors what I’m feeling or sensing at that time.

What questions do you ask yourself when painting?

Is this any good? Is the surface doing what I want it to do? Is it communicating what I have in my mind? Will this painting stand the test of time? For me, painting is often overcoming a sense of doubt. I have a lot of doubts during the process.

What, if any, do you feel your relationship to abstraction to be?

I like abstract painting a lot. A recent series I recently created a series of works that was my attempt at abstraction, which was the Walking Figures series. The paintings in our show This is the Way are a nod to geometric abstraction and hard-edge painting. There are a lot of very horizontal and linear elements in the compositions.

Do you see the forms and figures in your work to be signifiers for something else?

I often think of them as pseudo-self portraits, even though they do not necessarily look like me or reflect scenes from my life. They are idealized depictions of realities hoped for.

What is the evolution | back story to this particular series of paintings you have made?

Currently, I am creating a series of paintings depicting an African American man enjoying the fruits of his labor in his garden as he attempts to process the despair, fury, and fear that entwined the public health crises of coronavirus and the murders of Black people at the hands of police. The young men in these paintings are gleeful gardeners who take advantage of moments of respite.

What relationship do you have to other artists of your generation?

Many artists working today are interested in the human condition and what is happening in society today and create paintings that speak to our time.

Do you feel any particular allegiance or kinship with artists of previous generations and if so why?

Definitely, I’m currently looking at a lot of early modernist painters. Some favorites are artists who share a love for painting nature, humanity and capturing the fragility of it all. There’s a timelessness to their works, and a lot of it has to do with their lived experience as an essential element in how we interpret their work, along with the content and execution of their artwork.

What role has the digital played, if any, in the development of your practice?

I use digital painting and drawing editors like Photoshop and Pixlr to fine-tune works in progress that begin as traditional sketches. In the past, I have created works that have been directly inspired by digital art and digital animation.

How would you describe your palette and what motivates your choice of colour?

Color is symbolic in my work; I use bright, candy-colored pigments to portray people engaged in ordinary activities, representing the subjects or their surroundings with subtle and apparent distortions, sometimes with cartoonish humor.

What chimes with you about James’ works for this show?

James and I both have an affinity for flatness and bold colors. There is also a bit of dark humor in each of our works. Our work asks questions but doesn’t necessarily provide the answers. The pieces frequently make the viewer smile initially, then leave them walking away with these questions. I like James’ sense of color and how he organizes and structures the composition of his paintings. I often interpret his work differently with every viewing. A first glance, his paintings appear simple and direct, disguising complexity and depth. They challenge me to look longer. 

What, if any, do you feel your relationship to abstraction to be?

I like abstract painting a lot. I recently created a series of works that was my attempt at abstraction: the Walking Figures series. The paintings in our show This is the Way are a nod to geometric abstraction and hard-edge painting. There are a lot of very horizontal and linear elements in the compositions. Ellsworth Kelly’s 1996 painting “Blue Green Black Red” has inspired many of the works in the exhibition.

Do you feel any particular allegiance or kinship with artists of previous generations, and if so, why?

Definitely, right now, I’m looking at a lot of early modernist painters. Painters like Pierre Bonnard, Paul Gauguin, Gabriele Munter, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Edvard Munch are currently on my mind. These artists shared a love for painting nature, humanity and capturing the fragility of it all. There’s a timelessness to their works, and a lot of it has to do with their lived experience as an essential element in how we interpret their work, along with the content and execution of their artwork.