John Gerrard: Dark Portraits

Went to see this beautiful show at the Royal Hibernian Academy on opening night this week, with Ralph Borland. Not much time to write (still no internet at home), but the Smoke Tree work was just breathtaking (liked the smaller one better, and the interactivity was not really necessary – tho it did make people look at the work for longer – but what a beautiful moving image!), and the Portrait to Smiles Once a Year made me smile for so long that it kind of made up for her not smiling. Also, was especially wonderful to witness the buzzing -lack of a better word- provenance around the Dark Portraits themselves, as viewers moved in to see the dilated pupils of the subjects in Gerrard’s portraits (taken, as the title suggests, in total darkness)… Note the new "Ireland Art" category on the blog (which will include Irish and non-Irish art I see in Ireland)! John Gerrard’s site.

From the RHA site:

John Gerrard, Smoke Tree 111, 2006, Realtime 3D, 6+2 A/P

John Gerrard is an artist whose varied works investigate the emotional possibilities of digital technologies, creating pieces that allow us to question our physical and psychological identities, our relations to each other and toward the physical environment.

Working in the arena of new technology, Gerrard’s understanding and manipulation of the medium is extraordinary. He explores the rift between real and the virtual by his insistence that real space and time be programmed into the behaviour of virtual. His sculptures and images frequently hinge around the new temporal and experiential possibilities to be found in real-time 3D.

The works could be described as virtual sculptures, which makes them somewhat like film in that they are time based but are also sculptural and photographic. New works in this show include Smoke Tree (2006), a virtual sculpture with the central basis formed by an oak tree that is transformed as it emits plumes of dark and swirling carbon, creating a mesmerising and ever-changing tableau. The work operates from dawn to dusk, constantly moving around the central motif.

One Thousand Year Dawn (2005) presents a portrait of a young man on a beach, looking out to sea. There is no movement apart from the roll and ebb of the tide. The scene seems still and yet the sun rising in the screen will finish it’s journey in September 3005.

In addition, Gerrard will show a series of photographs titled ‘Dark Portraits’, which are part of an ongoing project of placing subjects in a completely dark room and then photographing with a series of flash bulbs. The sitter appears lost, staring into a void, the visual relationship with the world suspended.

Gerrard was born in 1974 and lives and works both in Dublin and Vienna, Austria. A recipient of various awards and residencies, including the Siemens Residency at the Ars Electronica Futurelab in Linz and an Arts Council residency in Banff, Canada, Gerrard has exhibited widely in Ireland and abroad. He first exhibited in the RHA as part of Eurojet Futures in 2004 and again in 2005 as part of the anthology exhibition. Gerrard is represented by Hiliger Contemporary Gallery, Vienna.

A full colour catalogue with essays by Shane Brighton and Christiane Paul, Curator of New Media at the Whitney Museum, NY will accompany this exhibition.