New in July | alt_space exhibition + artist talk June 27 2015
In the alt_space:
On exhibit: July 7- August 15, 2015
Artists Talk: Saturday, July 11, 11am
Reception to Meet the Artist: Saturday, August 1, 4—7pm*
New Smyrna Beach, FL — Arts on Douglas announces the opening of a new alt_space exhibition by Michael Katz, titled The Raw and The Cooked. The exhibition will be on view July 7 through August 15, 2015 with a reception to meet the artist on Saturday, August 1, 4-7pm, and an Artists Talk on Saturday, July 11, 11am. The exhibition, reception, and Artists Talk are free and open to the public. *Please note: Due to the July 4th holiday the gallery will be closed and not participating in this month's First Saturday Gallery Walk.
The title of the exhibition, The Raw and the Cooked, is a reference to a 1964 publication of the same name written by social anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. In that publication Lévi-Strauss identifies a universal logic that underlies all systems of organization--a structure of binary opposites. While binary opposites generate a hierarchy of value and meaning, they cannot exist without the other. Michael Katz is particularly interested in exploring the differences and similarities between photography and painting. By using digital technology as a medium for expression and experimentation, Katz's hybrid work suggests that media specific differences are more fluid, malleable, and complementary than previously thought.
The Raw and the Cooked features a collection of photo-based digital art printed on canvas. The works in this alt_space exhibition combine the sensibilities and processes of painting and photography using imaging software applications. Katz does not favor one medium--photography or painting--over another, nor does he conceal his role as a mediator. Instead, his work emphasizes the digital medium with simulated brushstrokes and pixelated textures. Katz's approach raises many new questions about media specificity. If painting is thought to be a construction of a world, and photography a direct presentation of the world, then digital art might be best understood as a representation of a different world, a world in the process of moving from the virtual to the actual. The Raw and the Cooked invites viewers to reconsider both painting and photography as forms of pictorial representation that when combined digitally may lead to new forms of expression not achievable individually.
The upgrade to digital media has heightened the artist's awareness of the limits of traditional photography and painting. He uses the digital medium to explore new processes and techniques that photography and painting cannot achieve alone. "Over the years, I discovered the visual lexicon and grammar of photographs through making airbrushed India ink drawings and acrylic paintings of them. I learned how to see like a camera and realized the limitations of photography in relation to painting. I use that experience to make images not possible with photography. I want to be surprised by a result that has the visual acuity of a photograph, and the sensory richness and spontaneity of painting," Katz stated.
Michael Katz holds a B.F.A in Studio Art and M.A. in Painting from Kent State University, Kent, Ohio. His work has been featured in exhibitions and collections including the Drawing Center, New York; Touchstone Gallery, New York; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio; Toledo Museum of Art Toledo, Ohio; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida; Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Massilon Museum, Massilon, Ohio; Westwood Art Center, Cincinnati, Ohio; Canton Art Institute, Canton, Ohio; Miami Metropolitan Museum and Art Center Miami, Florida; Fort Lauderdale Museum of the Arts, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana; Miami-Dade County, Miami, Florida; Valencia College, Orlando Florida; Broward College, Pompano Beach, Florida; Miami-Dade College, Miami, Florida; and Kent State University, Kent, Ohio. He has received numerous grants and awards including an prestigious National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Katz currently teaches drawing, design, painting, digital media and is an art lecturer at Stetson University and Valencia College.