In Catching Equilibrium, Gregory Kitterle distills balance into a quiet fresco composition of pale greys, greens, and powdery blues. A delicate arch curves upward across the surface, meeting a faintly sketched vertical form that seems to hover between stability and collapse. The fresco’s granular texture and subtle fissures lend the work an archaeological presence, as if it were a remnant retrieved from a wall long exposed to air and light. Kitterle transforms fragility itself into structure, finding stillness within erosion.
Here, the fresco medium becomes a metaphor for the search for harmony within impermanence. The thin veil of color, punctuated by hints of gold, captures a moment of suspended poise—what the artist calls “the point just before things shift.” As in ancient murals, pigment absorbed into lime becomes part of the wall, inseparable from its support. There are echoes of the imaginary architectures of ancient Roman frescoes, where painted structures once opened illusionary vistas into other worlds. The asymmetrical forms suggest a fragile scaffold or portal, yet the composition maintains an inner order that feels meditative rather than tense.
Parallels arise with the serene materiality of Giorgio Morandi and the spatial restraint of early Renaissance fresco, yet Kitterle’s sensibility is distinctly contemporary. Catching Equilibrium merges time and texture, gesture and gravity, creating a meditation on how balance is never fixed but continually rediscovered. The result is both ancient and immediate—an image that seems to breathe, holding within its worn surface the quiet pulse of renewal.
