Jeremy Rotsztain: Digital Gestures

First Friday Reception: Friday August 1^st, 6-8pm

Digital Gestures explores the implications for the artist’s hand in the age of the iPad. Across images and animations, Jeremy Rotsztain expands upon traditional painting practices by using digital tools. In Swiping (2014), gestures made on an iPad are transported into an abstract 3-dimensional space. Here the gesture is not the expressive act that Abstract Expressionist painters such as Jackson Pollock were known for; instead it is a physical command to explore an infinite flow of digital information. In Action Painting (2008-2011), the gesture is an explosive moment sampled from high-octane scenes in Hollywood action films. Gun fire and car chases are transformed into virtual material and splattered across a canvas. Finally, in Obsessions (2008), brush strokes are generated by custom software based on images of cute animals found online. In these works, the artist’s hand is sometimes present, at other times augmented and finally, entirely replaced by the computer.

Jeremy Rotsztain works at the intersection of painting and software programming. He lives and codes in Portland, Oregon. www.mantissa.ca