NYAB Event - Chris Dean x Eric Van Straaten “22ndd Century”

Chris Dean x Eric Van Straaten “22ndd Century”

Krause Gallery

This event has ended.

KRAUSE GALLERY presents art of the future, today. With the wave of recent technology based art, there are none better than 3-D, lenticular artist Chris Dean and 3-D printed sculptor Eric van Straaten. Both artists are at the top of their fields with their hands on approach to their art. Not only do they create and design their own work, they are involved with the actual creation as well. From top to bottom you won’t find two better technology based artists today than these two.

Chris Dean: Chris works almost exclusively with lenticular printmaking, a process that creates illusionary qualities of depth and motion on a flat two dimensional surface. The effect is similar to holography but works through the use of a carefully designed surface overlay that directs imagery to a viewer’s eyes in particular patterns. The same underlying principles are shared by 3D movies and view masters but lenticular has the benefit of not requiring glasses or special viewers to see its effect. “My interest in lenticular is related to a general curiosity with optical illusions I have had since I was a kid. Black light art, gestalt images and the vibrating shapes and lines of op art were all extremely captivating. The intrigue was probably similar to my feelings about magic at the time with its suggestion of a world beyond the ordinary. As a teenager I made my own illusionary artwork and in college discovered stereoscopic processes like anaglyph. My thesis show was a series of large anaglyph prints, each accompanied by a pair of red and blue 3D glasses. The evolution to lenticular was natural and I developed an understanding of its qualities and explored a variety of approaches for making lenticular work. My aesthetic and conceptual interests are rooted in art that leans towards the psychedelic, with bright colors, a busy canvas and a curiosity of subjects difficult to pin down. I favor internal observation over cultural critique, things that look like religion but have no theology. I like art to be shaped with intention, a core of something personally felt, without excluding the possibility of the uncontrollable or unforeseen playing a role.

Eric van Straaten: There is no technique that is capable of achieving such a great degree of hyper(sur)realism as 3D-modeling. At the same time, 3D printing is the only technique with which virtual models can be made actually physically touchable. Physical expressiveness in form and content is the biggest strength of the work of Eric van Straaten: while the sculptures remain to have a certain digital feel to them, the pieces contain a weirdly eroticized corporeality. Balancing on the edge of kitsch, the marzipan-like quality of the material resonates beautifully with the apparent innocence of the scenery. For Van Straaten, the focus on girls on the threshold of adulthood reflect both my own obsession and that of contemporary western civilisation with (frozen) youth. What this focus means for the development of young girls toward womanhood, is painfully described by Mary Pipher in her book, Reviving Ophelia; Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. By using different accessories, companions and scenery, I try to transform the Ophelia-figures into Nemeses (not in the sense of archenemies but in the sense of the Greek goddess Nemesis, the spirit of divine retribution against those who succumb to hubris: arrogance before the gods). I believe that Vladimir Nabokov, when he coined the name in his controversial novel, meant his Lolita-figure to be a similar figure: a creature that turns on its maker.

Media

• Photography
• Prints
• Sculpture

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