Chris Dorland
Species
October 27, November 23, 2021
Galerie Nicolas Robert is very pleased to present Species, a video installation by Montreal-born Canadian/American artist Chris Dorland. For the past decade, Dorland’s paintings and video works have been examining the complex relationship between technology, capitalist space, and the body. Dorland is interested in the ways in which these conditions are contributing to, and accelerating, profound transformations to our comprehension of reality. This will be the artist's first solo presentation in Canada.
The exhibition consists of an ambitious single-channel data-driven video work untitled (species III) displayed on a 65” 4k LED monitor. Our Project room has been converted into a miniature black box theater environment. Untitled (species III), 2021, brings to life a digital creature encased within a digital womb. A semi-transparent cephalopod pulses hypnotically with intricate patterns against a deep black abyss. The cephalopod’s skin is a cross between digital metadata and bioluminescent emissions. The artist created the skins using generative adversarial networks (GAN) as a starting point. GAN is a class of machine learning in the same family as deep fakes’ allowing new images to be created out of the extrapolation of data sets. The effect on the creature's skin is both mechanical and organic, reminiscent of the throbbing life-like quality found in consumer districts- like Times Square in NYC, Dundas Square in Toronto, or Dotonbori in Osaka - where electronic advertisements flicker and glitch across the urban landscape.
The audio component of the piece has been made in collaboration with the artist's longtime collaborator Montreal-based sound designer Leon Louder. An iteration of untitled (species) without audio was first debuted earlier this year at Lyles & King in NYC. The Species project has been generously supported by the Canada Council for Arts. The artist would like to thank Leon Louder, Adrian Bolog, Jen Chaput, and Eli Kerr for their friendship and support.
Chris Dorland (b.1978 Montreal) is a New York-based artist working at the intersection of painting and new media. His work has been exhibited internationally and is in numerous collections including the Whitney Museum, The Bronx Museum, The Neuberger Museum among others. His work has been exhibited in FRONT INTERNATIONAL: The Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art in Cleveland, Lyles & King in New York, Nicoletti Contemporary in London, and Super Dakota in Brussels. He has exhibited in galleries such as Marc Selwyn Fine Art in Los Angeles, Sikkema Jenkins in New York, and Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago. He is Director-at-Large at Magenta Plains.
We would like to thank the Lyles & King Gallery for their collaboration.
