KEN OKIISHI (AMERICAN B. 1978)GESTURE/DATA 2013Chroma key vi...

Estimate

£500 - £700

KEN OKIISHI (AMERICAN B. 1978)GESTURE/DATA 2013Chroma key video paint on large format display led, barco crt blue screen video by HD camera transfer OR Oil on flatscreen monitor with video, colour, sound105 x 61cm (41¼ x 24 in.)Provenance:Matthew Gallery, Lieske/Kersten Gbr., BerlinAcquired from the above in 2014Based in New York, Ken Okiishi is celebrated for his avant-garde combination of media, particularly painting and film. Okiishi is represented by Pilar Corrias; he has exhibited at the Whitney Museum, Frieze Art Fair, and MoMA. Though the artist embraces video footage as readily as acrylic pigment, his interdisciplinary work is united by a forward-looking impulse, forever interrogating the impact of technology on visual perception. The gesture/data series marked Okiishi's first solo exhibition in London: six television screens hang from the walls, playing jittery VHS footage or, indeed, recordings of blue error screens. The present example falls into the latter camp, as chroma key paint (used for green-screen compositing) is superimposed onto the azure empyrean. Okiishi's mark-making recalls Joan Mitchell - an avowed inspiration - in its eloquent intensity. The paint is daubed onto the surface like a heat map, as if tracking movements across a touch screen. By implying connections between abstract expressionism and modern-day technological manipulation, Okiishi inaugurates a new form of art, one suited to our digital age.