Tom V. Schmitt coming of age
April 27 - June 15, 2014
This exhibition is comprised of computer generated color field prints by Miami - based artist Tom Schmitt and are like his color field paintings of the 60’s and 70’s. Each work is a computer manipulated geometric abstraction depicting vivid bold colors and symmetrical composition. Theearliest works in the exhibition date from 1968. They are quiet but overflow with energy. Since the early years of Schmitt’s painting everything around us has changed. On first glance, so has Tom’s work, now created by computer instead of his steady hand. Technology has been harnessed by the artist to serve the intrinsic nature of his work. The squares of paper are muchsmaller now, these paintings in miniature retain the essential intellectual rigor that formed the basis of the artist’s earliest work. Schmitt’s work has grown well beyond the boundaries of it’s material surface, creating a visual power that objects of this small scale rarely achieve. Schmitt rewards the viewer with his meticulously intelligent work that reconnects us to the reductionist formulae of Malevich and Albers to Agnes Martin to Dan Flavin to Peter Halley.
Schmitt was assistant Director of the Metropolitan Museum , Miami , FL. (at the Biltmore) and was a noted art restorer in the region. He was very instrumental in the development of COCA and MoCA inNorth Miami, FLorida.