Painting Perspective

Date:	2001
Medium:	Oil on canvas
Size inches:	40 x 72
Size cm:	101.6 x 182.9
Signature:	Signed and dated lower right and inscribed on the reverse
Location:	Private Collection, Syracuse, New York

Now, let us look at painting not as product but as action. In Painting Perspective perspective is caught in the act of trying to deceive us. Smudges of paint and lines drawn through the wall with its leaded-glass windows draw the eye to a perspectival image whose vanishing point swerves to the left. But then we hit the wall directly before us where a map tells not about the wide world but about the flatness of the picture.
Deem's probing of representation as the production of imaginary spaces is not limited to Vermeer. The hanging glass orb, evoking the mirror in Van Eyck's famous Arnolfini wedding scene, does not mirror us but in its roundness reflects the smudges of paint on the left wall.  The curtain is raised so that we can look into the kitchen where the miraculous world of painting is fabricated. The mirror reflects the act of painting in history, Vermeer after Van Eyck, Deem after Vermeer. Now, and then.
(Mieke Bal, Exhibition brochure announcement Pavel Zoubok Gallery, New York, March-April 2002).

Reference
Vermeer, The Music Lesson, Queen's Collection, London. (window wall) Vermeer, Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid, 1670-72. (first window) Vermeer, The Art of Painting, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. (map, chair, hanging pulled back) Vermeer, The Allegory of Painting, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (suspended globe).

Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, Nevada

Exhibition date:

September 21 - November 4, 2001

Works Shown:

Art Deco School Ashcan School Bauhaus School Del Sarto, Canaletto, Titian Edward and Jo Hopper:Excursion into Philosophy The Fauve School Figure in a Landscape Fragonard at the Frick (Study 1) Frick Museum Study 1 Hudson River School 1995 La Tour Vermeer Manet Box Study Opened Cube Matisse School of Dance Occidental Rug Painting Perspective Saturday Afternoon, December 2, 1995 School of Arshile Gorky School of Modigliani 2 School of Piero Della Francesca School of Stuart Davis Seven Vermeer Corners The Studio of Jacques-Louis David Tea Time Vermeer's Lady Seated at a Virginal, the Lady Removed Vermeer's Music Lesson with the Figures Removed

Yale University Jonathan Edwards College Master's House

Exhibition date:	January 16 - March 16, 2003
Institution:	Yale University
Works Shown:	The Art of Painting, diptych The Art of Painting (Study) Extended Vermeer Extended Vermeer: The Woman in Blue George Washington Vermeer Love Letter, The Love Letter, The (Study) Painting Perspective Red Chair, The Signature Vermeer Detail 2002 Vermeer's Chair Vermeer's Chandelier 1986 Vermeer's Easel Vermeer's Jug Vermeer's Music Lesson with the Figures Removed Vermeer's Window Woman in Blue Woman with a Water Pitcher

New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut

Exhibition date:	February 9 - April 17, 2005
Works Shown:	A Stool, A Chair, and a Map The Art of Painting, diptych The Art of Painting (Study) Artist's Studio Artist's Studio (Study) Clio Europa Extended Vermeer: The Woman in Blue Painting Perspective Pearl Necklace Vermeer Detail 2003 Woman in Blue

Pavel Zoubok Gallery, New York

Exhibition date:	March 21 - April 20, 2002
Works Shown:	An Allegory of Faith An Allegory of Faith (Study) Extended Vermeer Love Letter, The Painting Perspective Red Chair, The Seven Vermeer Corners Woman in Blue Woman with a Water Pitcher