Exhibitions

Viewing Platform (Mountain View) ŠJohn Gerrard

New Work in New Media | John Gerrard

October 23rd - November 30th 2003

Short Artist's Statement

Discovering photographic 3D scanning has been a watershed in my artistic development. This allows the artist to create a photograph which exists in 3 dimensions, a sculptural photograph. The development of photographic-type portraits existing in the round such as those to be showcased in the Gallery of Photography creates a break in the history of photography, in which the single photographic moment, long since detached by computer technology from ideas of truthful representation, becomes an object. Sculpture and photography begin to collapse inwards upon themselves. This allows the artist to move away from collage and to work with digital media as though shaping a piece of clay, or directly manipulating a face.

The motivations behind these new works have developed along several conceptual lines. One is to reassess the notion of portraiture as static form, and to reconfigure the genre as one which can develop as something fundamentally changeable or adaptable. Not in the sense of a Dorian Gray type degradation, although the aging portrait is a possible if perhaps not widely desired outcome, but more of an adaptability to current circumstance. This will develop to include a wider range of stimuli, from temerature to proximity to excitement levels, in tandem with manual intervention, as showcased here. Another avenue is an interest in the under exploited potential for beauty in technology.

I am interested in the promotion of the technological artwork to be installed in the domestic space and have developed a proto-type device to allow this to happen. This opens up a multitude of possibilities for the public to develop new relationships with art. Works in progress currently include a landscape which has self generating unique fogs or as showcased in Saddening Portrait, new temporal possibilities such as portraits that change in appearance over decades.

In addition following the recent tragic loss of my brother my relationship to portraiture has changed significantly. For me now, portraits seem to be emotional receptacles holding both memories and feelings. My brother died at age 23 and he is forever frozen pictorially at that age. I am interested to create representations which also do not age but which can be changed to smile or frown at will. The portrait remains a document of a particular time but is also a medium through which the public can express themselves and their feelings.

John Gerrard 2003

Artist website:www.johngerrard.net