Review

"Can I See You Again?" (Part 1), Mixed Media on Canvas.

Steve Rimmer
Sticks and Stones

10 a.m.-8 p.m.

Corridor Art Space
4041 Mill Street
Kansas City, MO
816.931.6655

Hours: 10 a.m.-8 p.m. daily
Runs through: March 9

Artist's site: http://www.steverimmerstudio.com
Gallery site: http://www.gouldevans.com

It's typical for painters to add texture to their works during the painting process. Steve Rimmer starts even before laying down his first brushstroke of color.

Even through the glass that encloses the Corridor Art Space (which is inside the Gould Evans architecture and design firm, facing the south hallway in Manor Square), it's apparent that there's more to Rimmer's vibrant mixed-media works than immediately meets the eye.

Step a foot to the right, and the entire surface changes. Move two feet to the left; it changes again.

And there it is: A network of ridges, crisscrossing the Expressionist canvases in Rimmer's current show, Sticks and Stones.

"You've got color, shape and texture, and that's all you've got," Rimmer says. "My favorites are color and texture."

For for the former, in this show, Rimmer largely favors a bright, high-autumn palette exemplified in today's featured piece, Can I See You Again? (Part 1). That fits the naturalistic feel of his paintings — a sense heightened by the textures Rimmer has worked into each piece.

He doesn't start laying on the under-touches until he has primed a canvas three times. Then he takes a mixture of gesso and texture medium, adjusts it to the proper viscosity, and goes to work with a brush.

"I just flick it on," he says. "Then I'll go back with one of those bamboo skewers you use in the kitchen, and use that to flick on some more. Sometimes I'll use a palette knife to push things around until I get just the right texture."

Rimmer, who is largely self-taught and didn't take his first art class until age 50, calls his learning style a blessing and a curse ... and is quick to give credit to another artist who helped him find his visual voice.

I like to learn on my own but that method lengthens the process substantially, Rimmer writes. Almost two years ago I met the artist Robert Quackenbush through a friend of mine. Robert is a talented artist and a fine teacher. He began immediately to fill in the holes in my education and to point me in new directions. I continue to work with Robert at Studio Q and he continues to be a valuable and generous mentor, teacher and friend.

Rimmer's development, meanwhile, continues apace ... and one likely casualty of that development is the texture technique that marks the works in Sticks and Stones.

"I've been doing this for longer than I thought I would," he says. "But I'm ready for something new."

If  Sticks and Stones really does mark the end of this particular stage of Rimmer's career, that's all the more reason to see the show ... from as many angles as possible.

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