Galerie Perrotin, Paris is pleased to present “sur le motif”, Peter Zimmermann’s seventh exhibition with the gallery.

Peter Zimmermann is an alchemist of colors. Using technology as a tool, he filters images to create chromatic paintings that stand on the threshold of abstraction and figuration. While abstraction has been present in his work in the 1990’s, the emergence of computers and omnipresence of digital manipulated photographs have led him towards a new shift in his work. For many years, Zimmermann has utilized technology to deform images, text and signs from his own image bank in order to produce matrices for paintings in epoxy, a material developed by the artist in which he inserts acrylic pigments and drops onto the surface of a canvas.

The exhibition at Galerie Perrotin, Paris brings together a series of large-scale works, which Zimmermann developed using a new technique of oil on canvas, which in some ways returns to a more traditional form of painting. Zimmermann is strongly influenced by images, how they are manipulated by our society, and more precisely how instants are captured and sometimes shared. Starting from a virtual algorithm that enhances colors of images, Zimmermann then creates large hand-painted works, applying paint with a paintbrush in a methodical manner, sometimes making several different color versions from the same source.

“I wanted to change techniques, to work more directly with the surface of the canvas. In many way, oil paint gives me more options as a painter, it allows me to go in much wider directions”, says Peter Zimmermann.

From a distance, the movement produced by the paint brings to mind Georges Seurat’s pointillism, while Zimmermann’s careful studies of colors remind us of Claude Monet’s dissection of time on the Rouen cathedral. Seen up close, details of the carefully applied brush strokes and the calculated composition that brings balance to the work draw a closer relationship to Japanese printmaking. Yet, Zimmermann’s paintings appear liberated as if colors had decided to run wild and decide for themselves where they end up on the surface, creating an energy that is both fervent and contagious. Shown alongside epoxy canvases, these new works show the extraordinary range of techniques, which the artist develops to simulate the eye.

Image: © Peter Zimmerman
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Perrotin Paris