Art Exhibition — Dan Gottlieb: Figure | Ground

Dan Gottlieb is best known for his blurred and distorted landscapes. Each piece begins as a photograph, which is then printed on acrylic and worked with a variety of paints and compounds to create a unique surface.

For 30 years Dan served as the Director of Design, Planning and Museum Park at the North Carolina Museum of Art. He was instrumental in the creation of both the Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park and the West Building. His experience in museum and exhibition design has translated to a more thoughtful approach to exhibiting his own work. Figure | Ground, like Gottlieb’s previous shows at Craven Allen, presents an immersive installation with beautiful and provocative images.

In addition to landscapes, Figure | Ground features a suite of figurative work. Each piece maintains his trademark mixed media process, resulting in images that feel familiar while exploring this novel territory. Dan is interested in the titular figure-ground relationships as they have appeared in the art historical canon. “Artists, from impressionism and through various movements in the 20th century, incrementally dissolved figure-ground distinctions” he explains.

With this body of work, Dan Gottlieb positions himself somewhere along the timeline of artistic figure-ground perceptions, reveling in the ambiguity of it all. “That place between waking life and impermanence is where I find great beauty and inspiration” he says.

This is Dan’s fourth show at Craven Allen Gallery.