For ‘Wet Paint’, Plovmand takes the gallery space itself as her source material, transforming architectural photographs and found images into digital abstractions. The writhing shapes of computer codes and electronic disturbances are choreographed by the gestures of the artist; alluding to the intuitive mark making of abstract expressionist painting. These digital images are translated into carpets and printed canvases that create an unsettling interior within the gallery.
Plovmand (b. 1975) makes striking installations combining mural painting, printmaking and objects that investigate the impact of digital technology on the making and sharing of images. Plovmand approaches the digital realm as an irrepressible force, which she compares to psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s ‘Lamella’: the autonomous, shape-shifting matter of the libido. In Plovmand’s work Lacan’s immortal Lamella becomes a metaphor for the internet and the relentless production of new information that it generates.
During the opening evening, the artist will perform digital transformations of personal photographs offered by the public, which are printed live and added to the exhibition, in an evolving, regenerating installation.
Wet Paint coincides with several exhibitions in London looking at artists’ investigations into digital processes, and follows on from Plovmand’s participation in the 2016 BNL Media Arts Festival at MAXXI, Rome.
