ART GALLERY
Dane Picard
Selected Works
Reception
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
6-9 pm
Exhibition is open November 9 through
December 15, 2011
Monday through Thursday,
11 am to 2 pm and 6 pm to 9 pm
The current exhibition of thirty-seven selected works by Dane Picard focuses on the last ten years of the artist's unique process in digital media. Picard has been working with digital media since the 1980s, experimenting with early computer and animation software. His studies in philosophy and electrical engineering also inform his practice, in which he produces artwork that is more than slick digital imaging or moving trompe l'oeil. Rather, Picard's nuanced understanding of how the computer and technology impact contemporary cultural habits and attitudes is connected to his interest in how people receive, process, and filter constant visual information. He assembles a rich database of imagery that he finds or creates and poetically manipulates what would have been perceived as random visual data. The engagement in Picard's work becomes an experience of looking at familiar pictures in quick pulses that transform into an unusual optical sensation.
In Picard's portrait series of famous dead artists, he gathers and combines digital reproductions of self-portraits made by renowned painters such as Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Frida Kahlo, and Vincent van Gogh. The opportunity to view these self-portraits in person pales in comparison to the masses who have more access to the masterpieces through reproduction in photographs, textbooks, and the Internet. Picard, therefore, appropriates the reproduction of the famous self-portrait, an image that is essentially part of the larger database of popular visual culture, and confronts the viewer with a re(de)generation of the original. He creates a sequence in which the earliest self-portrait of the famous artist morphs into a later self-portrait, and the sequence is then repeated. The viewer witnesses a transformation of the iconic image aging, almost disintegrating, and then returning to youth again. The gaze of the famous artist expands and contracts in a painterly language unique to that artist. A rhythm in set into motion where deconstructing and reconstructing a famous portrait are synthesized.
Though Picard's primary medium is digital media, there is a strong physical presence in his works. The hardware, wires, lights, screens, tape, monitors, and projectors are carefully considered as parts of a sculpture or installation. Picard's work is a constant reminder that the virtual world exists in the physical world, and simulating a visual experience is ultimately derived from a physically tangible one. This almost paradoxical relationship between simulation and reality, digital media and sculpture, is beautifully addressed in his piece, Water to Wine. The piece is viewed through a Plexiglas layer that sits in front of four small screens taken from disposable digital video cameras. The screens are arranged vertically. The top screen displays the neck of a slightly tipped bottle as water pours from its opening. The three screens below show the clear water gradually transforming into wine and is finally collected in a delicate glass goblet at the very bottom screen. The seamless shift of water to wine is magical, and even when the viewer is lost in its miracle, Picard reminds us of the simulated transformation. The work itself is a physical arrangement of screens, wires, and hardware affixed to a wall. And, when the piece is unplugged, no miracle can be witnessed.
Dane Picard's projects incorporate elements of digital media and current technology in beautiful and poetic ways. His body of work places him at the forefront of contemporary new media art. Picard's projects also play a significant role in cultural and social critiques related to technology and the dissemination of information. Particularly with the advent of the computer and viewing the world through a digital lens, a once broader global society is quickly shrinking as our understanding of what is real and what is simulated is also diminishing. Picard's work is sophisticated yet accessible, tapping into the ways in which a viewer from a visually rich, internet-crazed, global society processes information.
Dane Picard studied English, Philosophy and Electrical Engineering at the University of Utah. He earned his undergraduate degree in Fine Art at Cornish College of Arts and received his graduate degree in Experimental Animation at CalArts. His works have been exhibited nationally with extensive publication. Dane Picard has shown at renowned spaces such as Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica, Post Gallery in Los Angeles, Austin Museum of Art, Torrance Art Museum, and Pasadena Museum of Art. He has received the Art Here and Now Program award from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Picard's work has been reviewed in publications such as the Los Angeles Times, ArtWeek, The Magazine, and San Diego Union Tribune.
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