Don Steinmetz

Don Steinmetz grew up in Los Angeles in the 1950's where he developed a strong affinity for the mountains and the sea. He has lived along the Hudson River throughout his adult life. His deep appreciation of the Hudson and it's role in American art led him to focus his paintings on it's headwaterers  in the Adirondack High Peaks. He and his wife Karen, have two adult children. He works in a studio at the Garner Arts and Industrial Center in Garnerville, N.Y.

Don Steinmetz

Artist Statement

My current landscapes are based on the geography of the Adirondack High Peaks. I have spent my adult life living and working in the Hudson Valley, with a deep appreciation of the spiritual in the work by the artists of Hudson River School. The headwaters of the Hudson have become the focus of my work through many summers spent there with my wife and children, hiking, fishing, and marveling at that corner of our world.

In my work, I am looking for a threshold of recognition, where our experience of the landscape becomes discernable, absent perspective. The vertical point of view and filtering of elevations reveal coherent, engaging, and unanticipated patterns across the terrain. These works explore the emergence of information from apparent noise, the tension between digital and analog means of expression, and the appearance of the knowable within the unfamiliar.

I have a strong affinity for the landscapes of the early modernist painters, particularly Cezanne and Kandinsky. I was deeply influenced by my friendship and collaborations with Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, and Robert Rauschenberg, on prints and multiples in the early 1970’s at Gemini GEL in Los Angeles, and thereafter on projects in New York City.

dhsteinmetz@gmail.com

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