Justin Suazo “Piezo Flora”

Ed. Varie

poster for Justin Suazo “Piezo Flora”

This event has ended.

Ed. Varie presents solo exhibition, Piezo Flora with artist Justin Suazo.

Piezo is derived from the Greek piezein, which means to squeeze or press. Piezo Flora, Justin Suazo’s debut art exhibition, consists of a series of scanned and reprinted paper towels that were used in the cleaning of micro piezo inkjet printers.

The cybernetic-flora relationship between human and machine manifests itself in the colors and abstract forms absorbed by Suazo’s meticulous collection of paper towels. Suazo runs a digital printing studio that utilizes this technology and has been amassing paper towels since 2014. Paper towels are left overnight under inkjet printheads to prevent the printer from clogging. They are also used to wipe up spills or catch drips from tools and equipment. These acts of maintenance, which are necessary for the printer and its encompassing business to survive, mimic the reproductive relationship between bees and flowers to their greater plants. Like flowers, the colors and forms that emerge are beautiful and captivating to the human eye.

The human-machine relationship is doubly realized in the act of scanning and reprinting the printer’s cybernetic blooms. The flower-like simulacrum of having advance imaging technology recreate the organic and abstract image it once oozed and bled is both beautiful and perverse. It is a physical imaging feedback loop. It is a digital-physical double flower mutation - the outcome of human, machine, and commercial systems intersecting.

By outfitting his printers to use reactive dye, these prints have a naturally-embedded vibrancy and density. Reactive dye is specifically used in natural fabrics like silk and cotton. Instead of sitting on top of substrates the way pigment inks do, dye penetrates the fibers. When the dye is bonded to the fibers through steaming, the colors spring into life.

“I like to try and imagine the way certain flowers like orchids or dianthus get their color. I’ve yet to see footage of a Sweet William dianthus or a Yellow Speckle orchid get its color, but I imagine it occurs when no one is looking in the middle of the night inside the flower’s private enclosure.”

Media

Schedule

from September 27, 2018 to October 14, 2018

Opening Reception on 2018-09-27 from 18:00 to 21:00

Artist(s)

Justin Suazo

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