Night and Day at Home, 2009-10

In this extensive and tightly focused series of painterly ink-on-paper drawings, Greer explores the way the ever-changing light transforms his home.

The mirrors hung on the wall set the theme - this is a space of total internal self reflection, where an omnipresent desktop computer converses with the artist’s early abstract paintings, and a window to a light-filled courtyard and a lamp take turns negotiating with the shadows. Despite the constant visual change expressed in these interior landscapes, the conspicuous absence of any depiction of the resident implies a feeling of immutability, claustrophobia and emptiness. But the artist is very much present in the work; India ink is an unswervingly sensitive and honest medium and each meander of the brushwork reveals the artist’s hand.

“John H. Greer will be presenting two interrelated bodies of work. In the first, a series of paintings from 1998 - 2004, vibrant, primary-colored stripes intersect, swoop around each other, and weave themselves together to form energetic interference patterns.
“At first glance, the second and more current body of work almost seems to be by an entirely different artist; loosely rendered but carefully observed brush and ink drawings of simple interiors whose subject is the state of light. On bright days sunbeams stream through the window panes, reflect off the surfaces of walls and furniture and settle into glowing corners. At night the lamp spreads its warm light through the room and the shade casts its arch onto the wall, while solitary streetlights haunt the dark space outside. Then, on second glance, you notice familiar striped paintings hanging on the apartment walls.”

– Gallery statement from NIGHT AND DAY with Lydia Greer, Martina }{ Johnston, Berkeley, CA, 2010