University of Toronto Art Centre (4 November – 19 December 2009)

Curator: Bogdan Luca
Artists: Shannon Dickie, Alex Fischer, Shlomi Greenspan, Hyoki Kang, Michael Lawrie, Meghan McKnight, Amanda Muis, Alex Sheriff, Jol Thomson, and Jeff Tutt

Facing the Screen addresses the medium of painting’s interrelation to technology by presenting paintings by student artists from across the GTA who source and produce their artworks through digital means. From peering around the exhibition, one can observe a mixed invitation: canvases that resemble more traditional explorations into the physical qualities of paint; hybrids of projection and canvas that seem to be located in between materiality and computerized images; and works that are fully digitized using internet and projection technologies. When the canvas is positioned next to the computer screen, in both physical and ideological set-ups, the amount of information transfer, both material and immaterial, from one to the other is easily perceived. The connection is in the referential dimensions of rectangular frames, in the surface skins that are produced through applying paint to a surface or after pushing into the computer screen with your finger to create rainbows and waves, and in the amount of control and manipulation one can apply through both mediums in order to create imagery.

Because the use of digital technologies in contemporary art practice seems at once like an obvious connection, it’s smart of curator Bogdan Luca to address this relationship by combining the work of young artists with the input of professionals within the same field who can together expose the topic for an open discussion. The use of digital technologies has moved past the initial criticism of having associations with dishonest representation – Photoshop isn’t considered as a tool for hiding flaws or creating visual trickery and the use of quick-n-dirty digital photos or Wikipedia for easily sourced references is common place. With these opinions since surmounted, the younger artists, as well as the more established painters, promote the use of digital technology as a valuable tool in art production – or they are now proudly admitting to that use.

There is a shift in the degree of implicit incorporation of technology by the two generations of painters: the younger represented in the exhibition (listed above) and the older represented in the accompanying panel discussion on Novemebr 4th that included Nicole Collins (absent), Monica Tap, Joanne Tod, Michel Daigneault and moderator Vladimir Spicanovic. During the panel each artist gave a short description of their practices, elaborating on particular aspects that included the use of technologies such as digital cameras, internet imagery and video. From Daigneault describing in visceral terms the surface of a canvas like the skin or screen of a computer to Tap relating her use of video technology to capture moving images from bus and train seats during her travels – the use of technology can be considered as more of a tool or sensible association in their practices. As I explored the works by the younger artists it was apparent to me that technology was a much more natural extension of their painting routine- from Shlomi Greenspan’s, The Bicycle Thief (2009) which is a painted canvas overlaid with an projection of an animation that replays the different stages of his painting’s development, to Michael Lawrie’s Efficient Mondrian (2009) which is a projection of Mondrian-esque images, randomly generated from text updated through the artist’s Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/emondrian). Many of these younger artists will have had a longstanding relationship with technology, using email, internet and cell phones since childhood, or at least from junior high school onward; these technologies are understood as integrated components in their everyday social, educational and creative lives. In North America, any generations before my own were not ensconced in the kind of all-access communication and information stream that is now flowing around us today that has effected the way we process information, think and create which is evinced in this exhibition.

In Facing the Screen, the adoption of digital imagery in many of the works initially appears to be opposed to the physicality associated with traditional notions of painting as a malleable substance that can be pushed and manipulated over a surface. With the addition of projections, a further integration of non-physical source materials transforms the paintings into a sort of technological performance, causing this physicality to be totally renegotiated. We will always want to believe that painting is always still going to be painting; because of its seemingly longstanding stoicism and consistency, it is not often addressed in a way that challenges its identity to the degree presented in Facing the Screen and the panel discussion. It doesn’t seem as though painters are scared, desiring a return to the traditional comfort of being a substance along a surface, because I believe both younger and older generations remain enamoured by painting’s original qualities. However, the works by the younger artists are indeed stretching boundaries for a medium that makes me begin to conclude that, yeah, maybe painting’s not always going to be painting sometime in the near future.

-Ginger Scott