Sebastiaan Bremer, Vinoodh 1. Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery

Written by Nina Rivera
Copy Edited by Erin Pedigo
Photo Edited by Yanting Chen

The modernist Edwynn Houk Gallery is now featuring the exhibition New Portraits, the work of Dutch multidisciplinary artist Sebastiaan Bremer, who is known for his ability to transform both his own and found photographs into mystical and ageless scapes. Within his New Portraits collection, Bremer’s fascination with photography’s ability to seemingly capture the passage of time is examined in a series of crepuscular-like portraits of the artist’s friends and family.

Sebastiaan Bremer, Andrea 3. Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery

His biography page from the gallery states that for many years, Bremer’s artistic practice has centered on the use of photography as a conduit for memory and the passage of time. New Portraits transcends the limitations of photography and blurs the distinction between it and paintings. Bremer physically altered the images in New Portraits by hand painting pointillism patterns; according to the gallery press release, his slow, meditative dot-by-dot application can itself be seen as a way of marking time. His biography page states that Bremer started exploring this style in the late 1990s, printing images of landscapes or family members to larger-than-life dimensions and applying these pointillism patterns. This style muddles our understanding of what photographs and paintings are each meant to be.

Sebastiaan Bremer, Rosa 3. Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery

New Portraits can be credited to a self-portrait Bremer took while in his studio, the press release said. He let himself be captured by his camera on a low shutter speed, resulting in a foggy visage absent of Bremer’s detailed facial features yet embodying his personality. Emboldened, Bremer photographed friends and family in a similar fashion to examine how time could impact the intangibility of an ever-changing world. The work nods subtly to pointillists, impressionists and Surrealists—but the press release also noted its connection to tradtional, historical Dutch portraiture with the three-quarter poses his subjects take and the soft jewel-toned backgrounds’ delicate lighting.

Sebastiaan Bremer, Sophie 1. Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery

Sophie 1 (2022), a portrait of a brunette woman, evokes viewing someone through a rain-streaked window, or with severe myopia. Viewers of New Portraits become engrossed. When the portraits are viewed from a distance, each figure is decidedly more discernible even under such intense distortion. When viewed close up, the subjects transform into vague orbs and shades, evoking the sensation of attempting to remember a dream and render it on paper. These abstractions are further highlighted by the infinitesimal dot markings across the portraits. Their arrangement mimics the rings of a tree or the whorls of a fingerprint, as if to confirm the essences of Bremer’s subjects rather than their perceived “true” nature. Stepping into these portraits reveals the brutal continuity of time and the ever-changing reality of the self. Bremer uniquely captures the physicality of the passage of time through portraits of those that have become bodiless.

New Portraits by Sebastiaan Bremer will be on view through October 1, 2022, at Edwynn Houk Gallery, 745 5th Avenue #407, New York, NY, 10151.