Rema Gholoum’s paintings in her new solo show, Atmospheres, are just that. Many are titled after natural phenomena — Deep Sea, Sunshine, Facade (Dusk), Still Morning — and each abstract work is a deep field of hazy color that optically blends on the canvas to create atmospheric effects, almost as if they each possessed their own light source.
The color in Sunshine, a vertical painting on canvas, seems to spill out from a central dark pool of misty blues. Like the center of a whirlpool, or the heart that beats within a body, the rest of the painting feels energetically connected to this dark center — brighter greens and golds energetically fold outward towards the edges of the canvas as if emanating from this darker core.
Painted over long periods of time, the artist works through a method of layering paint and then sanding it back to create nuanced ombres that glide together seamlessly across the canvas to create near-spiritual portals that suggest a certain kind of reverence. The artist also practices as a reiki healer, and each painting seems to contain an active energy that you may just get lost in as a viewer. Yet, around the border of each sublime work, the artist dabs thick colors with a paintbrush, creating a firm break from her misty environs, as if to ground us and bring us back to earth.
