Standard Deviations: The Digital Art of Michael Holcomb Opens In Reno
Standard Deviation: The Digital Art of Michael HolcombOK…Let’s say sometime in the 19th century, George Boole, who created the algebra that’s the basis for digital logic and computer science, met the German biological illustrator Ernst Haeckel and they decided to make art. It might have looked very much like the work of Michael Holcomb, an artist whose images are on view at the McKinley Arts & Culture Center Gallery West, May 14th through June 22nd.Holcomb has been making art with computers and electronic technologies for almost forty years. He’s taught at the University of Washington, the University of Oregon and was Dean for Technology in the Arts and Director of the Treistman Center for New Media in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Arizona. His work has been exhibited and published internationally and is included in both public and private collections.“My work is about discovery through formal invention and how that process is affected by technology. I respond to the surprise that results from setting up formal and mathematical circumstances that can reveal what was, until that point, unknown. Then, like any other artist, it’s what I do with these discoveries that makes the work.”The forms are developed with three-dimensional vertex modeling software and original algorithms, edited for characteristics of color, transparency and texture, composed and lighted in controlled virtual environments, and captured as high resolution digital images. The images are then printed with large inkjet printers using archival inks and papers.Holcomb credits many influences including information design, photography and the early 20th century abstractionists. “Their translation of the spiritual into the sensory often found pure form as a subliminal equivalent, the result of what some referred to as clairvoyant observation.” A reception for the artist will be held at the McKinley Arts & Culture Center, 925 Riverside Drive, Reno, Friday, May 18th, 5-7 PM. The show is running from May 14th through June 22nd.http://www.cubender.com/mholcomb
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