Caldwell Snyder Gallery introduces our newest gallery artist, Johannes Schramm. His premier exhibition, Still Waters, will open with an artist reception on Thursday, March 7, from 5:30-7:30 pm in our San Francisco gallery. Exhibition will continue through March 31.

Quiet, cool, and mysterious, the photorealistic paintings of Johannes Schramm do not depict water so much as conjure its essence. A longtime swimmer, Schramm first became fascinated with water scenes twenty years ago, when he began photographing the entrances to pools—handrails and staircases descending into water—on his regular swims. The point where solid reality begins to mingle with the liquid world continues to be a central focus in his canvases, creating endless visual puzzles.

In the water, Schramm has written, “rigid, strictly functional things begin to bend. The deeper they plunge, the more straight lines dissolve into curved lines, and shapes are disintegrated and thrown together. It is disordered geometry, interspersed with reflections, that I see when looking at the water surface.” Along with his poetically conceived liquid surfaces, Schramm continually offers surprising perspectives—sometimes positioning the viewer looking down into a pool from above, other times giving us a swimmer’s view, immersed in the waves.

Born in 1965 in Munich, Schramm studied fine art at the University of Art in Kassel. He has held exhibitions and participated in art fairs in Germany, Spain, Denmark and beyond, and lives and works in Kassel, Germany.

Caldwell Snyder is a leading contemporary art gallery representing many of the most significant international painters and sculptors of the 21st century. Caldwell Snyder has been a vital force in the art world, introducing many renowned artists to the Bay Area for the first time. With a combined exhibition space of 12,000 square feet between the San Francisco and St. Helena gallery locations, Caldwell Snyder has mounted more than 500 exhibitions over the past three decades.