Jeffrey Alan Scudder
Radical Digital Painting : Los Angeles
December 12, 2018 - January 15, 2019
Inside The House on Sunset
-----
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:
JEFFREY ALAN SCUDDER (born 1989) received an M.F.A. in Sculpture from Yale University School of Art in 2013. Selected recent performances include Bauhaus University, Weimar, Germany (2018); University of the Arts, Helsinki, Finland (2018); Open Forum, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Oslo, Norway (w/ Dalin, Rowan & Ben) (2018); and Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, Sweden (2018). Selected solo and group exhibitions include Radical Digital Painting w/ Julia Yerger, Johannes Vogt Gallery, NYC (2018); OPEN CODES (Schloss Solitude Web Residencies), ZKM - Center for Art & Media, Karlsruhe (2018); Imaginary Screenshots, Whitcher Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2017); New Dawn, Neumeister Bar-Am, Berlin (2017); and, ALLGOLD RENDER SERIES (3) @ MoMA PS1 Printshop, Long Island City, NY (2015).
-----
The Newsstand Project presents Radical Digital Painting: Los Angeles, a solo exhibition by artist Jeffrey Alan Scudder. This exhibition provides a brief survey of recent work from Scudder’s multi-disciplinary practice, containing digital paintings, drawings on paper, watercolors, software designed by the artist, and a live lecture performance.
Scudder’s long history of creating digital paintings began when he started building multi-layered images in visual programs like Adobe Photoshop. The practice has subsequently grown to explore new and novel approaches to picture making. The techniques employed in making the digital paintings shown in Radical Digital Painting: Los Angeles are an amalgam of traditional drawing and digital imagery, created using a mix of prosumer-grade image-making applications and homegrown software that Scudder states “highlight abstract expressivity, play, and improvisation over production quality and technical control.”
Regarding his practice, Scudder states: “A Google search for ‘digital painting’ today mostly brings up Photoshop tutorials related to translating age-old representational painting techniques to computational media, but the topic of digital painting has much more to offer the fine arts in terms of poetry and theory. Painting software today has largely developed out of a need for traditional artists to keep-up [the] pace of work in large-scale mass media production pipelines, like those of video games and movies. Few systems have been developed to incorporate the spontaneity and spirituality present in modernism and contemporary art and further develop the language of painting in general.”
Alongside a five-by-five grid of framed digital paintings, Scudder is exhibiting selected works on paper made during the last few years. Aesthetically similar in form and iconography, these paintings and drawings further demonstrate Scudder’s interest in traditional mark-making techniques while providing a tactile counterpoint to the artist’s digital paintings. Along with the artist’s works on paper, one software work entitled Tumpin is displayed on a wall-mounted video monitor. The piece itself is a recording from one of the artist’s own digital painting instruments.
During the opening, the artist will hold an hour-long lecture performance, his last scheduled one of the year. 2018 has been particularly busy for Scudder, as he held over thirty performances throughout the United States and Europe. The performances involved live digital painting, chalk talk, and demonstrations of the artist’s custom software, orchestrated using store-bought video game and MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) controllers. Often with McLuhan-esque probes like “Drawing is the best video game” or “Resolution has more to do with behavior than fidelity,” Scudder discusses and expands upon a variety of topics including computer literacy, transmediality, abstract painting, and video gaming. Since 2016 he has used the label ‘Radical Digital Painting’ to refer to both the ideas and the artifacts he presents. TNP
JEFFREY ALAN SCUDDER (born 1989) received an M.F.A. in Sculpture from Yale University School of Art in 2013. Selected recent performances include Bauhaus University, Weimar, Germany (2018); University of the Arts, Helsinki, Finland (2018); Open Forum, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Oslo, Norway (w/ Dalin, Rowan & Ben) (2018); and Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, Sweden (2018). Selected solo and group exhibitions include Radical Digital Painting w/ Julia Yerger, Johannes Vogt Gallery, NYC (2018); OPEN CODES (Schloss Solitude Web Residencies), ZKM - Center for Art & Media, Karlsruhe (2018); Imaginary Screenshots, Whitcher Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2017); New Dawn, Neumeister Bar-Am, Berlin (2017); and, ALLGOLD RENDER SERIES (3) @ MoMA PS1 Printshop, Long Island City, NY (2015).
-----
The Newsstand Project presents Radical Digital Painting: Los Angeles, a solo exhibition by artist Jeffrey Alan Scudder. This exhibition provides a brief survey of recent work from Scudder’s multi-disciplinary practice, containing digital paintings, drawings on paper, watercolors, software designed by the artist, and a live lecture performance.
Scudder’s long history of creating digital paintings began when he started building multi-layered images in visual programs like Adobe Photoshop. The practice has subsequently grown to explore new and novel approaches to picture making. The techniques employed in making the digital paintings shown in Radical Digital Painting: Los Angeles are an amalgam of traditional drawing and digital imagery, created using a mix of prosumer-grade image-making applications and homegrown software that Scudder states “highlight abstract expressivity, play, and improvisation over production quality and technical control.”
Regarding his practice, Scudder states: “A Google search for ‘digital painting’ today mostly brings up Photoshop tutorials related to translating age-old representational painting techniques to computational media, but the topic of digital painting has much more to offer the fine arts in terms of poetry and theory. Painting software today has largely developed out of a need for traditional artists to keep-up [the] pace of work in large-scale mass media production pipelines, like those of video games and movies. Few systems have been developed to incorporate the spontaneity and spirituality present in modernism and contemporary art and further develop the language of painting in general.”
Alongside a five-by-five grid of framed digital paintings, Scudder is exhibiting selected works on paper made during the last few years. Aesthetically similar in form and iconography, these paintings and drawings further demonstrate Scudder’s interest in traditional mark-making techniques while providing a tactile counterpoint to the artist’s digital paintings. Along with the artist’s works on paper, one software work entitled Tumpin is displayed on a wall-mounted video monitor. The piece itself is a recording from one of the artist’s own digital painting instruments.
During the opening, the artist will hold an hour-long lecture performance, his last scheduled one of the year. 2018 has been particularly busy for Scudder, as he held over thirty performances throughout the United States and Europe. The performances involved live digital painting, chalk talk, and demonstrations of the artist’s custom software, orchestrated using store-bought video game and MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) controllers. Often with McLuhan-esque probes like “Drawing is the best video game” or “Resolution has more to do with behavior than fidelity,” Scudder discusses and expands upon a variety of topics including computer literacy, transmediality, abstract painting, and video gaming. Since 2016 he has used the label ‘Radical Digital Painting’ to refer to both the ideas and the artifacts he presents. TNP