Mike Witmer: Paint-and-Light
Mike Witmer: Paint-and-Light
View the Exhibition: JANUARY 20, 2026 - FEBRUARY 27, 2026
SYKES GALLERY ι BREIDENSTINE HALL - 1st Floor
Exhibition | January 20, 2026 - February 27, 2026
Reception & Artist Talk | January 29, 2026
Reception Time | 5:30 - 7:00pm
Artitst Talk | 6:00pm
Gallery Hours ι Standard business hours for Sykes Gallery are Monday - Friday from 8:00am-4:00pm.
About the Exhibition
My works are an invitation for the viewer to observe over time and appreciate color interactions and relationships to light and surroundings. The things I make are rooted in the most basic painting characteristics like flatness, surface, opacity, and transparency. The paintings are made in a very straightforward way in terms of paint application and are all oil paint on a traditional support of canvas stretched on wood. My main focus for the last twenty years or so has been engaging with formal ideas from a historical and contemporary viewpoint beginning with ways of considering space, form and the rectangle that happened with Cezanne and then extended forward through history. Ultimately, the result has been a move away from the pictorial and an emphasis on the perceptual and optical. I hope for the viewer to experience "seeing seeing".
Mike Witmer 7/3/2025
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University Holidays
Campus Closed- New Year’s Day - observed 01/01 (Thursday)
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - 01/19 (Monday)
- Memorial Day - 05/25 (Wednesday)
- Independence Day - 07/04 (Saturday)
- Labor Day - 09/07 (Monday)
- Thanksgiving Day - 11/26 (Thursday)
- Day after Thanksgiving Day - 11/27 (Friday)
- Christmas Day - 12/25 (Friday)
- 12/26 (Saturday) - 12/31 (Friday)
- New Year’s Day (2027) - 01/01/27 (Friday)
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Directions & Parking
Directions - Google MapsTo the MU Police Station for a Parking Permit ... As you drive down N. George Street, you will make a right on to Frederick Street at the Library. Directly behind the Library is the entrance to the Boyer Parking lot. The University Police Station is directly infront of the parking lot. Please stop in to request a free daily parking pass from the attendant at the main desk. This parking pass will be valid for white lines spaces only.
To Breidenstine Hall - Sykes & Swift Gallery ... As you proceed down George Street. On the left, you will see the Sugar Bowl which will put you on Normal Avenue. At this turn, you will see a campus street sign for "Breidenstine Hall" (Department of Art & Design). Stop at the first stop sign and proceed straight. You will pass Biemesderfer Stadium and Chryst Field on your left hand side. A little further on the right you will see a square brick building with teal and white placards with the words "Art & Design". This is Breidenstine Hall, your destination of 46 E. Frederick Street. Sykes Gallery will be on the ground level of this building. Please address the department secretary in room 101 for access to the entrance for handicap accessibility. Swift Gallery is on the third floor. There is an elevator available.To the Bus Parking Lot ... West Cottage Ave & North George St.
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Parking Permits
Daily campus parking permits are required before 4:00 pm and available at the campus Police Station in Lebanon House on 237 N. George St., Millersville, PA 17551. These permits will only be valid for white, not yellow lined spaces. The station is open from 8:00 am – 4:30 pm. (717) 871-4357.