Transience: Udona Boerema at Gray Contemporary

From February 25 – April 1, Gray Contemporary in Houston, TX, will present Udona Boerema with the exhibition “Transience”. The exhibition is a selection of recent paintings from an ongoing series focused on the imagery of mountains. The opening reception will be on February 25th from 5:00 – 8:00 pm.  

About the Exhibition

Udona Boerema paints in a reductive manner with acrylic on course linen using washes to create a transparent and almost abstract observation of each mountain. All works in this exhibit are very small in size as the largest painting is 12” x 10”. In each work Boerema paints the mountainous scene almost as a portrait, centered and as the main focal point. The complexity of each mountain has been reduced to simple shapes, mostly negated to two plains which are often black and white.The background or negative space is often subdued in color while texturally the burlap-like course linen takes a predominate presence throughout each work. As the side of the paintings become vital for the work as the natural linen color is left bare with subtle drips wrapping around to the back side of each painting. Within each work Boerema paints sincere and intimate moments using mountainous landscapes symbolically to portray thoughts that are serene yet haunting.

About Udona Boerema

Udona Boerema (1982) lives and works in Overijssel, in the east of the Netherlands. She is inspired by mountains and clouds. The sensation she experiences with these two types of landscapes and how to transform them into one, where clouds become mountains and mountains evaporate into clouds is Boerema’s main inspiration. Ephemerality, volatility, transience and transformation are dynamic terms that can be experienced in a landscape but also in the process of painting. It is a delicate process in which the the material of the canvas, the consistency of the paint, the manual gestures in which the brushes are used, all emerge to create its own meaning. All those elements merge into a figurative illusion in which the paint evaporates into a cloud or a rock but the rock also evaporates into the realities of only the paint, canvas and gestures. This is Boerema’s intention when painting: transfiguration.