The Chambers Project Announces The Opening of Oliver Vernon’s “Counterpoint” Solo Show

Grass Valley, CA, February 18, 2023 – The Chambers Project is very excited to announce its first Oliver Vernon solo show since opening its doors.

Oliver Vernon is a Grass Valley-based artist whose work is grounded in his commitment to exploring form and movement, and their relationship with the psychological states that create the nature of reality. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is featured in numerous collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

“Counterpoint,” a collection of paintings, drawings, and driftwood sculptures, is a testament to the artist’s devotion to abstract expressionism and his dexterity in portraying the unportrayable.

“It’s not about making something; it’s about the feeling of doing it,” Vernon adds. “It’s like a pure expression of some transcendental space.”

As an artist, Vernon concerns himself with penetrating the flat surface of the canvas and providing the viewer with a full range of near and far perspectives using his mastery over grayscale, tonality, saturation differences, and then overlapping all these elements together. The collection includes black-and-white pen and ink work that illustrates this very concept – a technique he has been using since his youth.

“It’s kind of my sweet spot, my home, my most comfortable space,” he said.

From black-and-white pieces to paintings imbued in the color palette of imagination, each work aims at bending the laws of physics and tells a story of transient archetypes searching out their final places within the framework of the cosmos.

For The Chambers Project gallery founder Brian Chambers this show is deeply personal. His relationship with Vernon dates back to 2008 when the gallerist first met the artist and began collecting his work. In 2009 they began their collaborative partnership and there have been many projects in many forms since then.

“As a collector and curator, it is very exciting to finally be able to present an exhibition of his solo work,” Chambers said. “It’s been 15 years at this point – over a third of my life – since our friendship and professional relationship started.”

Since then, Vernon has also worked with Chambers under the moniker of the Furtherrr Collective, creating a collection of mural-size pieces. Vernon along with artists Mars-1, Damon Soule, David Choong Lee, and Nome Edonna have painted live at “Symbiosis,” “Burning Man” and many other events over the years, including most recently at the gallery’s “Togetherrr” show in March 2022.

Chambers mentioned that the original gallery in Nevada City was not prepared for the size and caliber of Vernon’s work, and only in this new incarnation of The Chamber Project – a larger space on Main St in Grass Valley – could Vernon’s work be displayed as it deserves.