On a Rainy Day…Gregory Thielker’s Paintings (Not Photos) – 8 Total

Under the Unminding Sky

We love Gregory Thielker’s art, not only because we can’t believe they’re actually paintings and not photographs, but also because he can transport us into another time and place. When we look at his paintings, Thielker wants us to experience those moments when we’re driving in our car on a cold and rainy day. He wants us to remember the thoughts that go through our heads, how on one hand we feel safe and warm but on the other we’re trying to navigate through an uncertain environment. It’s a strong metaphor for life, isn’t it? Gregory Thielker on his art: “My most recent paintings and drawings explore the sensation of seeing from a car while driving through the rain. I am fascinated with the constantly changing, yet particular landscapes seen from the car and also the way that the water on the windshield interacts with that landscape. The water creates a shifting lens for the way we see the environment- both highlights and obscures our viewing. Perspectives slip and compress, while shapes and colors merge into one another. I also work with relationships between surface and depth, between flatness and illusion. These works are born out of real experience and have a close relationship with the medium of painting- its fluidity, transparency, and capacity for layering, mixing, and blending. I draw upon a lineage of painters from Caspar David Friedrich to Gerhard Richter. The paintings themselves are compiled from hundreds of photographs taken while driving in rainstorms with the windshield wipers turned off. While these moments are commonly ignored or deemed a necessary part of reaching our desired destination, they are powerfully charged with weather, light, and color- all experienced at a great velocity. This combination of speed and subdued calm, as the world goes past, creates a kind of transcendental moment that I hope to tap into with the fluidity of the painting medium.”