Rich Brimer begins every painting with abandon. His modern impressionist approach offers a balance of a unique vision for the subject and spontaneous mark-making which captures the viewer. He looks for a subject that tells the story through light with a distinctive color palette. Golden horizons, long shadows and last-light hilltops are dramatically captured. Rich often finds inspiration with the constant churning sea at the edge of the ocean or the calm water flowing along a creek. Places of solitude bring us to nature. Rich Brimer’s contemplation during each painting collects his visions of nature and brings them into our view. His paintings offer us a long moment to appreciate the present.
ARTIST STATEMENT: My landscape work is deeply personal. I spent much of my childhood outdoors. I grew up in South Los Angeles County riding bicycles to get everywhere. From there my family spent summers in the desert riding motorcycles and hiking. I spent many winter mornings in a duck blind watching for the hint of the sun and wildlife. The experience of being in front of a subject, gazing at the horizon has informed my painting from early childhood. I take my painting gear to a site that I find interesting and I wait. I watch. I look. It is not until I pause and look that I can “see” my subject. I normally begin a painting with an iron oxide and solvent wash over the entire canvas. I wipe it down with a paper towel while still considering the design. I wipe out highlights then paint darker shapes with the same paint. Once the design is worked out I begin with the dark colors in the shadow.
I was born in Long Beach, CA and until moving to Kentucky in 2019, I have spent my entire life along the West Coast. After painting part-time while having a career as an art director who worked digitally, I decided to go analog and pursue fine art full-time in 2011. Seascapes and landscapes are so deeply ingrained in my personal history that it is a part of my being. I am fascinated with the ocean’s vastness and the solitude I find in its presence, but it has an even deeper significance, too. My seascape paintings reflect my thoughts about the ocean as a threshold between the beings living above its surface and the life teeming below, and about how the ocean supports and sustains life beyond itself. In sum, it’s a spiritual metaphor for my views about the penetrable boundary between the seen and unseen. I have spent much of my time doing figurative work which is more about storytelling. Here in Springfield, KY, through the curious eyes of a young Abraham Lincoln, I look around and get inspired by the landscape that I see every day.
—Rich Brimer • 859-481-4576 • rich@richbrimer.com