OLIVER SOLMITZ
ARTIST STATEMENT
While walking to and from a remote home I built in the space of the Western Maine woods, I often wondered if rules of architecture could be broken to make sculpture. Frustration in computer aided architectural design became motivation for working a diversity of materials with my hands. Subequently, early into the Master of Fine Arts program at Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, my work left painting for an interdisciplinary process ascending from both sculpture and color relationships. My current work embraces the tension found between modern materials with a machine aesthetic and allowing indications of the human hand to remain, in abstractions relating directly to my architectural understanding of space. In a world so strife with conflict, death, decay, and electronic technologies, I hope my work in part celebrates the calmness humanity is also capable of.
EDUCATION
2016 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, MFA in Studio Art with Graduate Faculty Award for Outstanding Achievement
2011 University of Maine at Augusta, BA in Architecture, summa cum laude
AWARDS
2019 Ellis Beauregard Foundation Travel Grant, juried by Sarah Auld, Executive Director of the Tony Smith Foundation
2019 Best in Show, Maine Open Juried Art Show at Waterville Creates!
2017 Juror’s Choice, Art 2017 at Harlow Gallery
2016 Graduate Faculty Award for Outstanding Achievement, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
2008 President’s Purchase Prize, University of Maine at Augusta, Juried Student Fine Art Show
2005 Dean’s Purchase Prize, University of Maine at Augusta, Juried Student Fine Art Show
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2019 Solo Show, 2D and 3D Diversity, Waterville Creates! Board Room, curated by Patricia King
2019 Solo Show, Art57MAINe, Bethel, Maine, curated by Donna Daquino
2019 Flux, Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells, ME
2019 Maine Open Juried Art Show, Juried by Donna McNeil and Olivia Fountain
2019 Art 2019, Harlow Gallery 24th annual statewide juried show, juried by Bethany Engstrom
2019 The Way Life Is - Maine Working Families and Communities, Union of Maine Visual Artists juried show
2018 Art 2018, Harlow Gallery 23rd annual statewide juried show, juried by Bethany Engstrom
2017 Harlow 2.0, Harlow Gallery, Hallowell, ME
2017 Staff Works, Buck’s Rock Creative and Performing Arts Camp
2017 Art 2017, Harlow Gallery 22nd annual statewide juried show, juried by Corey Daniels
2016 Prescription, Automat Collective of Philadelphia, curated by Steven Basel
2016 Thesis Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
2016 Bodies, Juried Show of the Philadelphia Art Schools (at Tyler School of Art)
2014 - 2016 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
Gallery 128 juried shows: Future’s Past, It’s the Thought That Counts, Absolute, Essential Variations
Graduate Floor Gallery juried shows: Working Through Things, It’s the Thought That Counts
Faculty Curated shows: Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, No Brushstrokes Barred
Sculpture Department curated show with Jerome McLaughlin: Untitled
2014 University of Southern Maine Department of Fine Arts: Faculty Show Alumni Invitation, Juried Student Show
2013 Isaac Dyer Gallery, Invitational show with Dean McCrillis and Yelena Fiske
2012 Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Annual 12x12