When you think of the term “synthetic” what comes to your mind? Fake, man-made materials, industrial designs, perhaps?
Art gallery Winston Wachter is debuting a new show that runs from June 21 to Sept. 2 that may change your perception of what synthetic means. The new show features six artists whose work interprets the notion of what is synthetic in a variety of ways and mediums. Perfect for the beginning of summer, “Synthetic” is a vibrant, colorful and fun group show in which each artist brings a unique consideration of color, material, content, and composition.
To launch the new show, Winston Wachter is inviting everyone to a Summer Solstice party from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on June 21. The gallery is located at 203 Dexter Ave. N. There will be refreshments, popcorn, music and fun.
Sure to be a crowd-pleaser is the whimsical shapes of photographer, sculptor, installation and video artist Liz Hickock, who begins with a Jell-O-like substance, manipulating this medium to build translucent, colorful, glowing scale models of urban sites, transforming ordinary architectural images into something truly ephemeral. The show includes her images of the Manhattan landscape in Jell-O. While exuding a jewel-like quality, the fragility of the gelatinous material points to the transitory nature of human artifacts. The actual Jell-O installations mold and decay over time, leaving her photographic work as the only record of these synthetic cities and their fleeting existence.
Other intriguing works include photographer and mixed-media artist Margeaux Walter, who combines real-world observations of everyday human interaction with fictional scenarios that portray nuanced vignettes of contemporary culture. These include the eye-catching “Vacay” and the humorous “iPhone Accident.” Beginning each body of work by closely studying body language, facial expressions and human interaction, she is able to bring a variety of personalities with her into the studio, where they are broken down, recreated and performed by Walter herself. She dons costumes, wigs and makeup to transform herself into these individuals and then photographs and digitally creates synthetic, artist-made scenarios. Walter’s finished works are 3-D lenticulars in which several separate interlacing images are laminated under a lenticular lens. This unique process creates the visual effect of action and motion.
Artist Shane McAdams offers scenic paintings that he titled Synthetic Landscapes. The romantically painted, vast landscapes at the center of his imagery are reminiscent of awe-inspiring Hudson River School paintings, as well as whimsical tourism postcards. McAdams then fills the surrounding canvas with invading abstract forms that suggest the unseen cellular makeup of these landscapes, whose electric colors bring into question the chemical composition of these beautiful vistas. Some of the works present bright streaks of color emanating vertically from the horizon line, as if revealing radiating waves of light otherwise invisible to the human eye.
Similarly, the work of Elizabeth Gahan explores the fusion and divergence of natural and man-made environments. With a focus on architecture, Gahan both celebrates the creativity, ingenuity and beauty of the built environment, while using unnaturally vibrant colors and plastic gel mediums to bring into consideration the environmental and cultural impact of unsustainable development. Soft washes of color suggest an organic and free flowing beauty, while thick and shiny globs of acrylic paint visually seduce, much like the glossy finish of a sports car or lipstick from a high fashion photo. The plastic textures seem at odds with the images of beauty found in nature. What we see in the work is the often-improbable synthesis of nature and culture.
Susan Dory employs acrylic paint as a malleable, synthetic conduit of color, form and movement. Dory uses the plasticity offered by her medium to create hard edge, yet fluid shapes that at times seem to expand and contract on the canvas surface. There is a paradox of movement and texture that intrigues the eye on a subconscious, as well as physical level as colors visually push and pull at one another. Titles like Coupling and Corposant seem to suggest an exchange of energy and serve as another vehicle from which to enter these vast, abstract compositions.
Mixed-media artist Liz Tran creates collaged canvases that reinvent the natural forms of trees and branches through a lens of poetry, textile patterning, printmaking and panting. Her playful and vivid imagery stir the senses, drawing on the eye’s natural desire for color and pattern. Wholly fantastical and synthetic, each image touches on an inner creativity that is whimsical, lyrical and completely unconstrained or bound by the natural world.
For more information, visit www.winstonwachter.com or contact Megan Des Jardins at (206) 652 5855.
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