DIGITAL BAROQUE: HISTORY MEETS ALGORITHM, A FUTURE-LOOKING EXHIBITION THAT CHANNELS HISTORY

ABOUT THE WORK

Ethereal Glory, 2022

Screen paint and acrylic on linen

124 x 72cm

“Ethereal Glory” by Shih Yun Yeo was inspired by the Greek mythology word ‘Aether’, sometimes also spelled as ‘Aither’ or ‘Ether’ which means god-personification of the bright, glowing upper air of heaven. Aether is the god of the upper air, the purest, finest air that the gods’ breathe. Aether was also a primordial god of light and the god of the sky, which the ancient Greeks considered to be “blue ether” that represented heaven.

Throughout history, including the Baroque era, human’s desire to seek the Gods and the heavens are depicted in many paintings. The color palette used in this work combines the iconic blue to reflect the “blue ether” with the gold, a typical color used in the baroque era to capture a period characterised by splendour in representation and elaborate celebrations.

For this work, Yeo experiments with the fusion of both the traditional and unconventional form that reinterprets the very act of Chinese ink painting. She starts with employing simple toy robots equipped with Chinese brushes dipped into paint to perform a task of painting, or rather a dance. Through this mechanistic ecstatic mingling, numerous traces appear on the surface of the linen. They serve as a starting point for the construction of an image. The artist carefully examines all the traces and collages them in a digitally assembled appearance via photoshop. The final image is embodied as a silkscreen, finished by the artist’s orchestration. The image of the work is bound to embark on another layer of digitality processed by Houdini’s intimate knowledge of mathematics and algorithms where the image becomes a series of digital particles, hypnotised by a circular zen-like wave. In an almost quantum way, the work becomes both a wave and a particle, ethereal in it’s character. Click here for more info.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Digital Baroque: History Meets Algorithm, a future-looking exhibition that channels history, opens 31 January-7 February, 2022 on the newly launched 4ART NFT+ marketplace. Artists include: Neïl Beloufa, Vittorio Bonapace, 'Botchy-Botchy', Rewind Collective, Brendan Dawes, Dr Ahmed Elgammal, Nacho Frades, Carla Gannis, Claudia Hart, Leo Isikdogan and Emerson Barrett, Sara Ludy, Jonathan Monaghan, Ouchhh, and Yeo Shih Yun. Their works have been exhibited and are collected by prominent public and private institutions like the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) NY, Guggenheim Museum NY, Whitney Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Museum, Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo & Singapore Art Museum.

4ARTechnologies, a pioneer in art digitization and security, is proud to launch their inaugural exhibition, Digital Baroque: History Meets Algorithm, bringing together 11 individual artists and 3 collectives. A total of 14 physical artworks ranging from data sculpture, AR wallpaper, screen painting and ink drawing to physical prints and 3D printed sculptures will each be matched by a unique NFT in this exhibition, minted on the Palm Network. This is an exhibition that is not only conceptually driven by art history. It showcases works that carry historical weight while firmly belonging to the future of art and the blockchain world, bridging the past with the future. Here, the physical world is the digital sphere’s parallel universe.