Damian Stamer
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BIO
Damian Stamer (b. 1982, Durham) received his BFA from Arizona State University as a National Merit scholar and his MFA from UNC Chapel Hill as a Jacob K. Javits fellow. He studied at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design as a Rotary Ambassadorial scholar and at the University of Fine Arts Budapest as a Fulbright grantee. In his paintings, Stamer meticulously explores the intricacies of time, memory, and the transient nature of existence. He engages with a spectrum of influences that include the natural processes of decay and entropy, the intuitive practice of autonomic mark making, and the silent narrative of abandonment and ruin, all while drawing insights from meditation, psychology, and the study of consciousness. Stamer's images capture the inevitable flux of time and the ephemeral quality of our experiences, reflecting on the unavoidable change that shapes our perception of the world.
In his most recent series, a collaboration with AI, Stamer employs DALL-E 2 to transform textual descriptions of his childhood memories into foundational visual references. This fusion of technology and traditional painting techniques allows him to explore the deeper layers of memory and the unseen. Stamer's paintings emerge as a confluence of past and present, reality and reinterpretation. Through his multilayered painting process, he addresses what it means to remember, to create, and to be human, offering a reflection on our relationship with technology and its impact on our perception of self and the world around us.
Stamer has exhibited nationally, with solo and two-person museum shows at the Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC and the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC. Selected group exhibitions include State of the Art 2020, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Momentary, Bentonville, AR; The Coffins of Paa Joe and the Pursuit of Happiness, Jack Shainman Gallery, The School, Kinderhook, NY; The Things We Carry: Contemporary Art in the South, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC; Area 919: Artists in the Triangle, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC; Art on Paper Biennial, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC. Stamer's work is in the permanent collections of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC; Kunstwerk Sammlung Klein, Eberdingen, Germany; Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC and North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC. In 2025, Stamer was included in two major exhibitions, The Cameron Art Museum: The Collection, Cameron Art Museum, Wilmington, NC and Everything Now All at Once, Nasher Museum, Duke University, Durham, NC. Stamer lives and works in Durham, NC.
