Whereas photography often brings time and movement to a standstill within the frame of an image, Kuno Grommers uses the camera to capture the spatial dynamics of a static image. Abstract geometric shapes and large areas of colour are the starting point for installations that seem to defy the laws of gravity. The optical illusions putting our powers of perception to the test are the result of Kuno’s innovative play with two important mainstays of photography: light and darkness. These illusions do not involve digital manipulation of any kind, seeing as his method of working is analogue.

The wooden floor of his studio, which has served as a reference point in this ongoing series for fifteen years, offers a clue as to Kuno’s working process. Its paint-spotted surface betrays the manual labour that makes these installations possible: weeks of preparatory work, during which he carefully designs, measures and manually builds the composition. Yet it takes only a millisecond to immortalize the result in a photograph. Then he starts the process all over again and there are new spots of paint to testify to the three-dimensional reality of these installations. Over the past 15 years, Grommers has made more than 120 installations and photographs that testify to his great skill in the areas of composition, repetition and experimentation.

• Recent exhibitions at Galerie Bart: Connection 2022 • A Summer Symbiosis 2021 • The Great Photography Special 2020 • Orientation 2018.

Kuno Grommers, born in 1946, currently lives and works in Haarlem, where his own gallery Punctum is open to the public. Kuno established himself as a visual artist, after a longstanding career as a theatre photographer. In 2017 Lectures and Galerie Bart published an overview of the more than 115 works he made in 15 years as an artist. His works have been included in the collections of the Frans Hals Museum and the Noord-Hollands Archive and many private collections.

His photographs have been exhibited in Dutch institutions such as Zandvoorts Museum, Dat Bolwerck in Zutphen, Provinciehuis Noord-Holland, De Vishal, Nieuwe Vide, and Philharmonie in Haarlem, the Utrecht based Kunstliefde and the Amsterdam Arti et Amicitiae. Furthermore he participates regularly in municipal art manifestations such as KEK Beverwijk, Contemporary Matters and Kunstlijn and Zomerexpo in Haarlem. Galerie Bart has discovered his work in 2014 and has been exhibiting with Kuno regularly ever since, also presenting his work at Unseen. His work was selected in 2020 for Volta Basel CH.

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2021 •
05.08 Het Parool Een zomers dubbelspel tussen ratio en emotie, by Edo Dijksterhuis.

2018 •
10.08 Het Parool Spel met perspectief en dimensies by Kees Keijer.
10.08 Kunst blijft een raadsel Kuno Grommers – Galerie Bart Amsterdam by Paul Voors.
21.04 Trendbeheer Grensgevallen, editorial.

2017 •
01.12 See All This De beste boeken van 2017, editorial.
23.09 Art.Reservoir Unseen 2017. by Marissa Evers and Christiaan van Doesburg.
01.06 HRLM Expositie ‘Dimensies’ In Galerie Gemund, editorial.
06.02 Haarlems Dagblad Fotoboek over ’de andere tijd van de Burgwal’ by Leontien van Engelen.

2016 •
23.09 See All this 10 highlights van Unseen by Joke de Wolf.