If you have driven by East Hills’ Richard App Gallery over the last week, then you know that while the cold, white stuff has been retreating, a new brilliance of color has entered your vision as the gallery prepares to welcome the work of Roger Bruinekool.
Titled “The Refined Line,” Bruinekool’s latest exhibition is a visual delight for the eye with rich colors freely weaving across the surface in a playful and powerfully bold manner.
Bruinekool, a graduate of the Kendall School of Design in 1957, has a wonderful history in our region over the decades, from being a member of the creative team that launched in 1982 On The Ground Magazine, to a two-time competing artist at ArtPrize.
Known for his abstract artworks, Bruibnekool after graduating from KCAD, spent about a quarter of a century painting and working as graphic designer and art director in Miami, Fresno, New York, Los Angeles, and Kingston, Jamaica before returning to Grand Rapids in 1974. He has also had two solo exhibitions of his works at the Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM).
From his 2007 GRAM exhibition, Kate Nagengast captured this quote from Bruinekool: "My goal is to attend to compositional elements in a way that evokes an adventure for the eye," he said. "Real objects are combined to form a composition in which they lend themselves to abstraction and the apparent abstraction helps the viewer to see his or her reality in a new way.” (MLive’s “
Roger Bruinekool exhibit is an adventure in 'pop art’”).
The public is invited to gather this Friday at the Richard App Gallery where the artist will be in attendance for an opening night reception.