Artist Daniel Heidkamp brings ‘Tempo’ and ‘art energy’ to Palm Beach

The latest series of paintings from artist Daniel Heidkamp can help you see through time.

His exhibition “Tempo” is on display through April 9 at Acquavella Galleries in the Royal Poinciana Plaza.

The paintings are the result of Heidkamp’s 2022 travels throughout Italy, where he visited destinations of historical significance to the visual arts, reimagining those locations through his own lens.

“When you’re in these art-historically important places, it starts to be a loaded image that you create,” Heidkamp said. “You can feel it if you talk about it. It’s an art energy. You’re feeling all these different forces and spirits.”

Italy is the latest destination to receive this treatment from Heidkamp’s paintbrush, the artist having visited France, Germany and a few locations in the U.S. including upstate New York and Yosemite National Park in California.

With each location, there’s a “visual language” Heidkamp said he tries to analyze through his work. “I’m an American abroad taking it all in,” he said. “I almost paint with an accent, too.”

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On location in Italy, Heidkamp captures scenes using primarily photography, with some drawing and oil pastel work as well. He looks back at historical paintings to try to decipher where each may have been set.

A standout piece in “Tempo” is Heidkamp’s “Baratti Beach,” where he imagines what the setting may have been if Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” was painted from a staged scene. The large shell on which the goddess stands in Botticelli’s painting is centered on the beach, with the artist’s tools at right, including tubes of paint, a canvas, a palette and brush.

“Even if you’re not into art, you know that image,” Heidkamp said of “The Birth of Venus.” “It almost whimsically asks, ‘What if they had to do that from observation?’”

As with many works of Italian art, Botticelli’s scene is imaginary, but Heidkamp said there must have been an actual landscape to serve as inspiration for the setting at some point.

In the case of Botticelli, there isn't that much information about where he might have traveled, but it was documented he was in Pisa at one point, Heidkamp said. That could lead to the Tuscan coast, with its coastal forests of pine trees — which are featured in some of Botticelli’s other works.

In his explosively colorful painting representing the eruption of Mount Vesuvius over Pompeii, Heidkamp shows the ancient Roman city that was preserved for centuries under volcanic ash. That ash packed into every nook, cranny, mouth and nostril of the homes and people of Pompeii and acted as a sort of time capsule.

“I wanted it to be less about this fire and explosion, and more about the energy of the volcano representing the birth of Italian art,” Heidkamp said, adding that it’s more about the “vibes and color” than it is about the destruction. “The spirit of what would come in the next 1,000 years was kicked off by this explosion,” he said.

While the volcano took many lives, it also managed to save a slice of Roman history, Heidkamp said, referring to the stunning frescos found on the walls of many Pompeiian buildings. Elsewhere, those frescoes have decayed over time.

“This explosion, it allowed for artists in the future to see those earlier paintings,” Heidkamp said, and the volcano was “an explosion of art energy as much as destruction.”

If viewing the exhibition chronologically, Heidkamp said “Pompeii” is a good place to begin. Next, he would suggest “Night Venice,” a sleepy look at a corner of the famed, water-filled city that is often viewed through an artist’s brushstrokes.

Heidkamp first saw the place in a painting by Gentile Bellini, “Miracle of the True Cross at the Bridge of San Lorenzo.” While Bellini’s painting is filled with action, Heidkamp’s portrayal focuses on the place, which he said appears to have not changed much in the hundreds of years since Bellini painted it.

Heidkamp drew on inspiration from other painters’ work of the same era by filling the Venice night sky with “those little geometric stars” that were so popular in the 1400s and 1500s. “I thought it would look cool,” Heidkamp said. “It’s a look that almost reminded me of something more contemporary, almost twee.”

After completing his Italian-inspired works, Heidkamp said he’s not sure if he will continue to examine art-historical places in the same way. “Something about doing Italy almost feels like some culmination of this project,” he said, noting that he still has more pieces he has yet to complete. “It’s such a fertile ground for this type of thing that I think I can do more and more."

In assembling “Tempo,” Heidkamp was mindful of Palm Beach: One piece represents the Villa Medici in Rome, which was, in part, the architectural inspiration for The Breakers Hotel. “I thought that was an interesting connection, and I decided to paint that with a nod toward your Breakers,” Heidkamp said.

If you go

What: Daniel Heidkamp’s “Tempo” exhibition

Where: Acquavella Galleries, 340 Royal Poinciana Way, Suite M309, Palm Beach

When: Through April 9; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday

Information: www.acquavellagalleries.com

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Artist Heidkamp's 'Tempo' show offers reimaginings of Italian work