Curator Yasu Nakamori’s provocative exhibit,
"Decipher: Hand-painted Digital," opened at the Rotunda
Gallery in Brooklyn Heights on Jan. 13.
The show, on display through March 5, features artwork by 10
artists who employed digital technology in some way to create
them. Through "Decipher," Nakamori, a native of Osaka,
Japan, explores the relationship between works that are created
by hand and those done on a computer.
"Marsha Cottrell and Claire Corey use incredible, detailed
gestures and marking in their works that relate back to the 1950s
and ’60s," Nakamori told GO Brooklyn. "Certainly there’s
a historical relationship between the current art practice and
Jackson Pollock and those guys from Abstract Expressionism. In
his time, he was activating new methods of artwork, too. You
can draw an analogy."
Cadence Giersbach’s paintings investigate tourist sites, first
by photographing the locales and then digitally manipulating
the photos. An example is her "Niagara: Maid of the Mist"
(2004), pictured.
"[Giersbach] grew up in the 1970s in New York City and is
very much interested in certain popular kitsch sites like Niagara
Falls," said Nakamori. "At Niagara Falls, the natural
beauty is declining and you look around at the horrible industrial
site that surrounds the falls – the division between nature and
industry. She’s interested in those dynamics of the site."
Nakamori explained that Giersbach takes a picture, manipulates
it on her computer and then begins painting the image – from
memory.
"She doesn’t use a digital projector that projects the image
onto a canvas like some other artists. The painting is based
upon a digital image, but then she lets it go and she paints
by hand. She’s partially relying upon her memories, her souvenir
photographs and the subculture related to the site."
Nakamori’s proposal for "Decipher" was chosen over
35 others to make him this year’s winner of the Rotunda Gallery’s
Curatorial Initiative Program, which supports new and emerging
curators.
Admission to "Decipher" is free. The Rotunda Gallery
is located at 33 Clinton St. at Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn
Heights. For more information, call (718) 875-4047 or visit the
Web site at www.briconline.org/rotunda.
Lisa J. Curtis
