Opening Reception: Thursday, September 14, 6 - 8 pm

Octavia Art Gallery is thrilled to open the fall season with Naomie Kremer: Vantage II, an exhibition featuring painting, hybrid work, and animation. A multi-media artist working in paint, video, photography and digital projection, Kremer creates abstract compositions grounded in the real world, exploring concepts of space and time.

Kremer’s paintings are comprised of thickly entangled layers of paint juxtaposed by carefully organized systems of color and rhythm. Residing in the compositions are ribboned gestures, which mimic playful dances through abstraction. The mastery of her work lies in the tensions she creates between line quality and density. Her lush, energetic works capture the essence of how we perceive the world around us.

This interest in perception extends to Kremer’s hybrid works, or digital projections onto a painting. They begin as paintings, which inspire the digital compositions. She then projects these videos onto the original paintings, integrating the static image with motion.

The outcome achieves an intriguing sense of tension and disorientation. Kremer states, “I aim to create an integration between painting and projection that leaves the viewer uncertain what is painted and what is projected until the spot where the gaze is focused begins to move.”

Kremer’s animation, Rudimentary Moves, is based on her painting Rudimentary Pixilation, which is in the collection of the Berkeley Art Museum. Selecting hundreds of fragments from the painting in Photoshop, Kremer animates the bits to tell abstract stories that encompass humor, pathos, and relationships – a range of human emotions – creating a loop that echoes the life cycle.

Naomie Kremer was born in Israel and currently maintains studios in Oakland, California; New York, NY; and Paris, France. She received her BA in history from the University of Rochester, NY, her MA in Art History from Sussex University, UK, and her MFA from the California College of Arts, CA. Her work is included in many collections including the following:  The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, CA; Hammer Museum, University of California, CA; Hewlett Packard Corporation, CA; Magnes Museum, CA; Mulia Hotel, Jakarta, Indonesia; New York Public Library, NY; Reuters Holdings PLC, San Francisco, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Staglin Family Vineyard, Rutherford, CA; The Brooklyn Museum, NY; Thomas Weisel Partners, CA; United States Embassy, Beijing, China; University of California, CA; Berkeley Art Museum, CA; Washington DC Convention Center Art Collection, DC; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; and The Yale University Art Gallery, CT.

Kremer is also known for her work in set design for the performing arts.