This week’s featured artist is Rom Lammar, whose abstract paintings are rich both in color and compositional technique.
Lammar began as a landscape painter, creating scenes of the European countryside with watercolors. As you can see, his work has evolved over time into oil paintings which clearly are influenced by sculptural forms and texture.
According to Lammar’s website, his love of traveling added to his interest in primitive cultures’ ethnic masks and tribal designs; as well as increasing the use of non-traditional elements in his work, like sand, metal, rope, and small stones.
Personally I enjoy his paintings for their beautiful composition, as well as the way he uses depth, light, and shadow to set the overall mood of the paintings. I also like how Lammar’s abstractions can seem to be realistic at first glance – until you realize that you can’t actually recognize anything he’s painted.
In his work above, A Long Time Ago, we can easily see some of Lammar’s interests. Because of the sandy colors and dominant door-like imagery, I naturally think of primitive buildings shaped by rough tools and baked in the heat of the sun.
He’s also included three-dimensionality in the work by putting a piece of metal into the center of the painting. The resulting composition forms a kind of visual alcove, or altar.
The third painting builds upon the previous two and offers even more texture, intensity, and imposing presence in the form of a centered, vertically-stacked shape.
I guess I’ll follow my own advice regarding abstract art and let you make the final analysis of his work.
You can also find more information about Rom Lammar’s paintings at his personal website, www.lammart.lu.