Developments in technology have become
such a part of our daily world that we can’t
imagine being without them: the internet,
digital imaging, ATM machines, electronic
stock market trading, even biotechnology,
to name just a few. Such devices, directing
us electronically in our daily tasks, are
also teaching us how to think, see, and
feel in new ways. Even the printed page
is composed of pixels--three hundred units
to the square inch in the case of your average
magazine page--which are coming to be seen
as the building blocks of contemporary visual
culture.
Artists today are finding that technology
offers more tools to the creative process,
to alter or reshape imagery. Whether consciously
or unconsciously the artists in "Altered
States" include the look of computer-style
imagery in their visual vocabularies.
Emily Joyce’s vinyl
paintings, mounted directly onto the wall
or sheets of Plexiglas, employ cut-and-paste
imagery from pop culture: scrambled, simplified,
and recomposed. Scott Barber
incorporates his own cancer blood cells
as abstract imagery by manipulating them
in Photoshop. Using industrial enamel paint
and vinyl stencil forms, he recreates them
on aluminum panels. Chris Kysor
also openly embraces the computer, conjuring
the look of a simplified childlike image
but with the savvy sense of current graphic
design. Chris Jaggers'
layered architectural interior abstractions
are also made from computer-designed vinyl
stencils, augmenting his hand to create
a more mechanical image and surface. Jeff
Yerger also employs vinyl adhesive
stencils based on computer drawings. He
then proceeds to paint forms directly onto
the walls and floor as on site instillations
inter-acting with the gallery architecture
as well as the other pieces in the exhibition.
Janet Tyson and
Marco Villegas both incorporate
masses of pixilated business into their
work, as if images severely magnified on
a computer screen were turned into aesthetic
architectural geometry. Arranging thousands
of Legos (a child’s toy) into complex
configurations against the gallery wall,
Tyson creates objects that are as much paintings
as sculptures, resembling large-scale pixel
surfaces. Villegas works in a similar manner
with paint on flat canvas. He even reshapes
the canvas from its standard rectangular
purity with large, pixel or grid like forms
coming off the side.
All of this work, although abstracted, is
infused with meaning derived from the personal
world of each of these artists. Much of
what they depict has its source in the physical
world but has been altered in appearance.
They are creating a mixed marriage of sorts
between imagery derived from pop culture,
graphic design, and the computer, addressing
the current role of painting in contemporary
times. - John Pomara
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2002-2003 Events
