Dressing Kit Mini (pink), Urethane resin and foam, silicone, pigment,
miscellaneous objects 46 x 44 x 2 inches
Images courtesy of the artist & Jack Barrett Gallery
Google’s image recognition algorithms are usually trained to look for specific subjects—buildings, dogs, humans. When fed images of landscape or static however, with no explicitly definitive forms, the Google AI creates subjects within these otherwise unoccupied planes. What results are detailed, iridescent renderings that feel at once recognizable and completely indistinguishable. Plates of cupcakes, bouquets of flowers, or crates of oranges? A writhing, winged snake or a snail with a face? A castle or a quivering mound of jelly? Shimmering, metallic swaths of texture and color undulate, evocative of psilocybin-vivacity.
Amy Brener’s exhibition, Consolarium, on view now at Jack Barrett Gallery in New York, seems to parallel this AI phenomenon—each work a collection of data, a definitive, though at times ambiguous, form. Ethereal towers in cream-bush ivory and purple—as vivid as the smooth interior of a mussel shell—bolster an air of ceremony, made informal through their unique features and counterparts. Brener’s works seem to be the resulting, physical manifestation of opening a foggy mind, shaking loose its conspicuous ephemera for the sake of more easily reaching its subterranean core. These loose artifacts are entombed in resin, their psychic baggage eulogized in sculpture—a totem bearing the insignia of memory. Its objective significance psychedelic, its subjective legacy deeply intimate. – Rebecca Storm
Installation view
Omni-Kit (Birthday), Urethane foam and resin, platinum silicone, Hydrocal, pigment, chrysanthemum flowers, sand, miscellaneous objects 69 x 24 x 16 inches
Omni-Kit (Votive 1), Urethane foam and resin, platinum silicone, Hydrocal, pigment, chrysanthemum flowers, sand, miscellaneous objects 40 x 15 x 15 inches
Omni-Kit (Eeostra), Urethane foam and resin, platinum silicone, Hydrocal, pigment, lavender buds, larkspur and marguerite flowers, sand, miscellaneous objects 85 x 47 x 18 inches
Amy Brener’s Consolarium
Dressing Kit Mini (pink), Urethane resin and foam, silicone, pigment,
miscellaneous objects 46 x 44 x 2 inches
Images courtesy of the artist & Jack Barrett Gallery
Google’s image recognition algorithms are usually trained to look for specific subjects—buildings, dogs, humans. When fed images of landscape or static however, with no explicitly definitive forms, the Google AI creates subjects within these otherwise unoccupied planes. What results are detailed, iridescent renderings that feel at once recognizable and completely indistinguishable. Plates of cupcakes, bouquets of flowers, or crates of oranges? A writhing, winged snake or a snail with a face? A castle or a quivering mound of jelly? Shimmering, metallic swaths of texture and color undulate, evocative of psilocybin-vivacity.
Amy Brener’s exhibition, Consolarium, on view now at Jack Barrett Gallery in New York, seems to parallel this AI phenomenon—each work a collection of data, a definitive, though at times ambiguous, form. Ethereal towers in cream-bush ivory and purple—as vivid as the smooth interior of a mussel shell—bolster an air of ceremony, made informal through their unique features and counterparts. Brener’s works seem to be the resulting, physical manifestation of opening a foggy mind, shaking loose its conspicuous ephemera for the sake of more easily reaching its subterranean core. These loose artifacts are entombed in resin, their psychic baggage eulogized in sculpture—a totem bearing the insignia of memory. Its objective significance psychedelic, its subjective legacy deeply intimate. – Rebecca Storm
Installation view
Omni-Kit (Birthday), Urethane foam and resin, platinum silicone, Hydrocal, pigment, chrysanthemum flowers, sand, miscellaneous objects 69 x 24 x 16 inches
Omni-Kit (Votive 1), Urethane foam and resin, platinum silicone, Hydrocal, pigment, chrysanthemum flowers, sand, miscellaneous objects 40 x 15 x 15 inches
Omni-Kit (Eeostra), Urethane foam and resin, platinum silicone, Hydrocal, pigment, lavender buds, larkspur and marguerite flowers, sand, miscellaneous objects 85 x 47 x 18 inches
Omni-Kit (Roulette), Urethane foam, platinum silicone, Hydrocal, Aqua-Resin, pigment, sand, fern leaves, larkspur flowers, miscellaneous objects 50 x 27 x 8 inches
Consolarium is on view until December 20, 2019 at Jack Barrett Gallery