Skidmore Contemporary Art
is pleased to present
KURT HERRMANN:
Earth Candy
On View
August 1 through August 31, 2026
Kurt Herrmann’s second solo exhibition at Skidmore Contemporary Art presents a new group of paintings that continue the artist's personal exploration of color, form, rhythm, and perception. Working in medium and larger formats, Herrmann invokes an even more expansive sense of space while the immaculately crisp edges, bold color, and graphic vitality of his work is as dynamic as ever.
Working from his studio in the Appalachian hills near Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, Herrmann continues to draw upon a visual vocabulary shaped by both place and memory. Throughout this new series, Herrmann's titles continue to entice and encourage unexpected associations between nature, music, memory, popular culture, and lived experience.
EXPLORE THE EXHBITION
Kurt Herrmann
Upweller, 2026
acrylic on canvas;
48" x 48"
Named after the oceanographic phenomenon in which deep waters rise toward the surface, Upweller suggests cycles of emergence through rhythm and proportion. A radiant chromatic arc joins expansive blue fields while a vertical series of colored circles quietly evoke the sea, sky, and atmosphere. While remaining rooted in abstraction, Herrmann's meditative approach translates this natural process into a carefully balanced sequence of formal relationships.
INQUIRE
Kurt Herrmann
Spring In The Hills, 2026
acrylic on canvas;
36" x 80"
A painting that immediately establishes the expanded scale and atmospheric ambition of Herrmann's recent work, Spring In The Hills suggests both horizon and sky without settling into either. With its sweeping arcs of sequential colors, the composition introduces many of the themes that recur throughout the exhibition: gently bending geometry, radiant chromatic transitions, and a casual equilibrium between visual abstraction and narrative stroy telling. Beyond describing a particular location or vista, Herrmann evokes the sensation of mindful presence, where changing light and buoyant resilience become inseparable from existence itself.
INQUIRE
Kurt Herrmann
Dungaree Sun, 2026
acrylic on canvas;
36" x 80"
With Dungaree Sun, Kurt Herrmann continues his exploration of textured blues framed by rhythmic bands of color converging toward a brilliant vertical core. It's architectural structure incorporates an atmosphere in which light itself is gathered, compressed, and released across the panoramic canvas. The title suggests the familiar textures of American life, while the painting elevates those associations into a luminous meditation on warmth, memory, and place.
INQUIRE
Kurt Herrmann
Bending Wonka, 2026
acrylic on canvas;
53" x 44"
Warm umber and luminous turquoise are joined by radiant bands of crimson, yellow, green, and rose that gently arc across the canvas with remarkable elasticity. The title hints at pure imagination, delight, and playful invention while the painting itself remains firmly grounded with formal stability. Humor, atmosphere, and graphic precision arrive in complete balance, offering a work that demonstrates how rigor and flamboyance can speak the same visual language.
INQUIRE
Kurt Herrmann
Mossland, 2026
Acrylic on canvas;
48" x 48"
In Mossland, Kurt Herrmann distills the experience of landscape into a luminous arrangement of color, contour, and quiet rhythm. A broad expanse of verdant green hovers above a rich crimson field, the two separated by a horizon of finely layered bands that shimmer with reds, oranges, greens, and deep earth tones. The painting suggests the meeting of earth and sky, moss and mineral, warmth and coolness, while remaining resolutely abstract. Its carefully balanced forms and luminous palette invite us to discover our own unique associations within the composition.
INQUIRE
Kurt Herrmann
Surfbender, 2026
Acrylic on canvas;
48" x 48" x
In Surfbender, Kurt Herrmann's refined vocabulary belies its remarkable complexity. Precisely calibrated curves subtly activate the picture plane, encouraging the eye to travel effortlessly across the composition while continually discovering new chromatic relationships. The effect is both serene and kinetic, suggesting the gentle curvature of the horizon as it merges with infinity. Drawing upon the clarity of hard-edge painting, the work transforms simple formal elements into an immersive visual experience that rewards sustained looking.
INQUIRE
Kurt Herrmann
Cirrus Highball, 2026
Acrylic on canvas;
48" x 48"
Atmosphere reaches one of its most unexpected expressions in Cirrus Highball. Mirroring arcs of blue, turquoise, and green converge in the center of the picture plane as if gravitationally compelled to meet, creating a sensation of inseparable attraction. Herrmann's use of curvature lends the composition an unmistakable sense of movement while preserving the clarity associated with hard-edge painting. The playful title suggests both elevated mood and high octane conviviality, reminding us that Herrmann's visual sophistication is consistently fueled by wit and charisma.
INQUIRE
Kurt Herrmann
Nerf Cathedral, 2026
Acrylic on canvas;
44" x 34"
Nerf Cathedral reveals the artist's distinctive sense of humor without diminishing the formal elegance of the composition. A luminous biomorphic form rises against a radiant yellow field while a fan of vibrant color expands across one side of the canvas, recalling stained glass, unfolding petals, or radiant light. The title pairs childhood play with architectural grandeur, inviting viewers to contemplate connectiond between the innocent and the sacred. Herrmann does not illustrate these ideas so much as create a space where they compatibly coexist.
INQUIRE
Kurt Herrmann
Sweet Moby, 2026
Acrylic on canvas;
44" x 34"
In Sweet Moby, broad undulating contours suggest both oceanic movement and living form without becoming descriptive. The title gently encourages associations with literature, music, and the sea while remaining deliberately open, allowing the viewer to discover echoes of waves, tentacles, marine life, or simply the graceful rhythm of color unfolding across the canvas. The painting exemplifies Herrmann's uncanny ability to transform formal precision into something refreshingly lyrical.
INQUIRE
Taken together, these works reveal an artist whose visual language continues to evolve with charismatic confidence. Broad chromatic fields, rhythmic intervals of color, and gracefully balanced figure-ground relationships create paintings that are at once sensual and graphic, contemplative and humorous. They unfold gradually, rewarding repeated viewing not through complexity alone, but through the steady accumulation of visual discoveries. Herrmann reminds us that abstraction can be intellectually rigorous while remaining welcoming, and that disciplined form need never be separated from the pleasures of curiosity, color, and imagination.
KURT HERRMANN:
Earth Candy
On view from August 1
through August 31, 2026
To explore other works of art available at
Skidmore Contemporary Art
please visit us at
Skidmore Contemporary Art
326 N Coast Hwy
Laguna Beach, California 92651
VIEW MAP
To find out more please
reach out to
lia@liaskidmore.com
310-922-5070