Art Center Sarasota’s
New Exhibitions: May 19-June 25
#postdigital
This exhibition, displayed in three galleries, highlights regional artists who are using technology to create their work or are incorporating technology as part of their work.
Local 707
An open, all-media, all-subject, juried exhibit.
Opening reception is Thursday, May 19, 5-7 p.m.
(Sarasota, FL) Art Center Sarasota’s 2015-2016 exhibition season, entitled “In the Studio,” continues with its fifth exhibition cycle, which runs May 19-June 25. “#postdigitial,” in galleries One, Two and Three, highlights regional artists who are using technology to create their work or are incorporating technology as a part of their work. “Local 707,” in Gallery Four, is a members-only, all-media, all-subject exhibition juried by Jamie Tracy, an artist and chair of the Design & Humanities department at State College of Florida. An opening reception for all four exhibits is Thursday, May 19, 5-7 p.m. This exhibit was funded, in part, by the TDT.
“#postdigitial,” an exhibit that spans three galleries, features works by a diverse group of artists and includes paintings, sculptures, prints, immersive video and sound installations, along with several projects created by makers at the Faulhaber Fab Lab, including an operational drone, a robot, and remote-controlled cars.
Dustin Juengel, Art Center Sarasota’s exhibition curator, explains that, for the artists in this exhibition, new technologies “don’t become hurdles, but instead function as enablers. Digital technologies become tools and material. They are used by this diverse group of artists as naturally as paint and pencil.”
He explains that the exhibit features works by over 25 artists—most from the Sarasota area. “Their often experimental mode of working does not allow for easy categorization, instead, ‘multimedia’ seems to be the new standard,” he explains. “One may discover a traditional painting in this exhibition, only to find out later, that, through the use of an app, the painting serves as a gateway that can lead the viewer deeper into the artist’s creative universe by linking it to additional images, videos, explanations and online portfolios. Other drawings and paintings turn into animations, sculpture is enhanced through the incorporation of light or sound, and installations and displays become interactive.”
Juengel adds that the artists in “#postdigitial” include, “high school students, college professors, full-time designers, part-time tinkers, computer programmers, and artists, whose work might actually fit within more traditional definitions.” Many of the artists are connected to regional institutions and organizations, including Ringling College of Art and Design, New College of Florida, Faulhaber Fab Lab, Pine View School and IMG Academy.
What connects the art and artists?
“An unstoppable outpouring of creativity and playful engagement with the act of making is the link that connects this diverse group of artists,” says Juengel.
Following is a closer look at some of the participating artists:
Claudia Cumbie Jones, Lance Ford Jones and Michael Wyshock (faculty member at Ringling College of Art and Design) are showing a selection of immersive media work, including digitally manipulated video footage and animation. They’re also showcasing works by seven of their students. “The work from this group is primarily video,” says Juengel. “About half of the videos incorporate the documentation of artist’s performances. The remaining works are best described as ‘visualizations.’ They could be understood as an extension of abstract painting.” The students include Daniel Jeffers, Emily Rives, Ruzica Ivanovic, Celia Garcia Nogales, Hayley Denham, John Dillard, Jordan Daher. For more info, visit http://webspace.ringling.edu/~ccjones/.
Multimedia artist Sarah Valdez is a graduate of Ringling College. In this exhibit, Valdez will showcase “Heart Happening Jewelry,” which is a wearable LED brooch made with an Adafruit Flora microcontroller and a Pulse Sensor Amped. “The pulse sensor registers the heart wave and then shares that data back to the program loaded onto the micro-controller to light up three attached Neo Pixels to the heart beat,” says the artist. “Wearing one’s heart beat creates a conversation about how signals can influence communication with other living organisms and environments similar to insect’s odor that trigger danger or colors that attract other species.” For more info, visit www.svaldez-es.org.
Gigi Lage a graduate of University of South Florida, is a Tampa-based artist, whose art involves sculpture, performance, video and multimedia installations. The artist says she’s “interested in creating raw, time-based work through the hand-manipulation of common audio and visual materials.” Her visual and object-making processes are typically created without the interference of digital software; she uses manual editing techniques to distort her pieces into finished works. In this exhibit, Lage will showcase a selection of her prints. For more info, visit www.gigilage.com.
Wesley Thorp, Sky Kistler, and Eric Voorhis: Together, the three young artists are collaborating on an installation of interactive video displays, incorporating the use of image distortion algorithms, that lets viewers manipulate images in real time. Wesley Thorp, a New College graduate, will also be showing prints from his “Datamaps” series. This work consists of a series of still and animated images, which showcase the divide between how people think of images and how computers process them.
Kim Anderson and Caui Lofgren are a husband-wife team based in Bradenton. Anderson is an associate professor of art at New College of Florida where she has taught painting and drawing since 2004. Lofgren is the chair of the art program at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, and has taught as an adjunct faculty at New College of Florida. They will be showing two of their new “barrier grid animations,” an analog method to create a simple animation effect by moving a striped acetate overlay across an interlaced image. “It’s basically a physical object, that becomes animated by the viewer moving past it,” explains Juengel.
Rick Herzog, who is also a faculty member at New College of Florida and the assistant professor of sculpture, will be showing a large, tree like sculpture that incorporates the use of 27 old IMac speakers broadcasting the sounds of birds. For more info, visit www.rickherzog.com.
Caitlin Burns is a digital artist who lives and works in Sarasota. “She will be showing three animated illustrations with a “ruins-meets-UI theme,” explains Juengel. ” In the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur.” For more info, visit http://caitlinburns.tumblr.com.
Cassia Kite, a fine arts instructor at IMG Academy in Bradenton, is showing three of her paintings along with the work of three of her students, Adrian Salgado, Angelina Ye and Brandon Wang. The students studied color theory with an emphasis on the art history of optical illusion and geometric Abstraction. They documented their painting process using their iPhone time-lapse film feature. The process film was then shared through the Aurasma app, which creates a link between the physical painting and additional web content. The painting becomes a target image that transforms into an interactive object that educates the viewer. When describing her paintings, Kite explains that she aims to “communicate the nostalgia, appreciation, love and admiration I have for my farm life upbringing. Everything I create has historical and sentimental significance to my past and presence and is in relation to my own personal narrative.” For more info, visit www.cassiakite.com.
Faulhaber Fab Lab at the Suncoast Science Center: Showcasing four exhibits by artists who use the Fab Lab to create their works:
Exhibit 1: Featuring lamp designs by Nick O’Donnell, an FSU graduate and designer/entrepreneur, who uses the Fab Lab’s machines to create furniture and accessories utilizing parametric design. For more info, visit www.terraform-design.com.
Exhibit 2: Featuring a long-range, low-cost, video reconnaissance drone
created by Henry Tingle, a Pine View High School senior and Suncoast Science Center youth volunteer.
Exhibit 3: Featuring a robot designed by a team of area high school students who had six weeks to build a robot from scratch, utilizing fabrication machines.
Exhibit 4: Featuring four remote-controlled cars designed and created by students working together for a recent competition.
“Local 707,” in Gallery Four, is a members-only, all-media, all-subject, juried exhibition. The juror is Jamie Tracy, an artist and chair of the Design & Humanities department at State College of Florida. Art Center Sarasota will accept hand-carried submissions on May 10, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Online submissions are open until May 6. A critique session with the juror, open to the public, is Tuesday, May 17, 6-8 p.m.
Art Center Sarasota’s 2015-2016 season runs through September 30, 2016.
Art Center Sarasota is located at 707 N. Tamiami Trail, in Sarasota. For more information, call 941-365-2032 or visit www.artsarasota.org.
About Art Center Sarasota
Art Center Sarasota was the first arts and cultural institution in Sarasota. This year, the organization celebrates its 90th anniversary. It was founded in 1926 as the “Sarasota Art Association” by Marcia Rader, the art supervisor for the Sarasota County schools district. In the early years, the group met monthly and sponsored exhibits in rented facilities. The Association was incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in 1943 and has been in its current location in the Sarasota Bayfront Cultural District since 1949. Art Center Sarasota is now a membership-based organization that offers curated and juried exhibitions, adult and youth education programs, outreach initiatives for underserved youth, and culturally related public programming. Art Center Sarasota’s mission is to inspire individual creative expression, nurture artistic talent and provide the community with accessible and diverse visual art opportunities.
Art Center Sarasota
707 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34236
Phone: 941-365-2032 § Fax: 941-366-0585
www.artsarasota.org
Gallery Hours:
Free admission
10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday
Closed Sunday
