Roman Fine Art is pleased to present Halcyon Daze, a solo exhibition by painter Adam Umbach.
Halcyon Daze showcases work from Umbach’s ongoing Playtime series. This collection of paintings explore a collective nostalgia for childhood memories by juxtaposing detailed photorealistic representations of everyday objects with expressionistic mark making. Using his non-dominant hand to create the thickly rendered lines and forms, Umbach constructs a dynamic sense of movement and physicality on the canvas, lending a sculptural, almost three-dimensional quality to the picture plane. This formal tension mirrors the balance between his playful, often humorous choice of subjects with the weight of the memories they symbolize—a sense of loneliness pervading a singular teddy bear, toy truck, or boat combined with the comfort and hope that it brings. Beginning his painting career with minimalist canvases based on the enigmatic names of color swatches, Umbach’s creative approach has expanded to experiments with abstraction, geometric painting, and expressionism. The evolution of Umbach’s painting is markedly influenced by his surroundings, from the maritime imagery and seaside colors of East Hampton and Maine to the graphic style of New York’s architecture and graffiti. Umbach’s work pairs formalist explorations with photorealistic depictions of recognizable objects, including boats, toys such as rubber ducks and teddy bears, and pink flamingo lawn ornaments. A biographical painter, Umbach’s chosen subjects, which often repeat through differing bodies of work, belong to a personal and familial iconography. Though sourced from his life, Umbach’s paintings invite viewers to connect with this imagery by evoking their own experiences and memories. About Adam Umbach: Adam Umbach (b. 1986, Chicago, IL) currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. After being inspired from an early age by the Modern Masters collection at the Art Institute of Chicago, he received his BFA in painting from the University of Wisconsin. He has exhibited his large-scale paintings nationally in galleries such as Roman Fine Art, East Hampton, NY and Gallery at 46 Green Street, Hudson, NY. He has also shown in numerous art fairs, including Moniker Art Fair, New York, Market: Art & Design, Bridgehampton, NY, and the Philadelphia Art Fair. Umbach recently participated in Bohemian City NYC and Bohemian City Miami, private group installations curated by Mago and held in conjunction with, respectively, Armory Art Week and Art Basel Miami.
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