Friday, August 19, 2011

Imagination on Metal Media

Most art shows that take advantage of internet submission rely on a monitor displaying the image (generally a jpeg) or projected onto a screen. The juror or panel of jurors make their judgments based on composition, color, and the like. But not on the medium on which the art resides (unless the exhibit is on the internet with no real world manifestation).

The juror is often surprised when seeing the image -- not only size ("I imagined this image to be very large, but it is tiny") or that it is, or is not, behind glass or it is face-mounted plexi or printed on metallic paper or canvas. In the "old" days, transparencies were sent, often giving a better sense of the object itself. Still, there was enough of a surprise that some art objects were rejected because they did not match the transparency or, today, the digital file.

But what if the entire set of images required a visualization of the image in relation to the substrate? There are assumptions in photography shows that the image will generally be on paper and in painting that the image will generally be on canvas or other interesting fabric.

In metaLphor, the intent was to have a first ever group digital art show in which all the images resided, in some manner, on a metal substrate. These could be sculptural; these could be infused on a metal surface (a dye sublimation process); printed on metallic paper; or perhaps with a substrate distressed with patinas or waxes with an overlying image printed on clear acryllic. The possibilities are many. 

Since this was somewhat experimental, a pushing-the-envelope process, most of the artists did not have their finished art object ready to be captured in a digital file and submitted to the curators/jurors of this show. So, we will be as much surprised as jurors in the "old" manner of selecting art for an exhibit. 

However, in this show, we anticipate, actually require ourselves to be surprised, knowing that the art objects will tease our aesthetics with content and media feeding off each other. 

Several examples that are posted here provide some sense of that interactive sensibility.


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