Paula Scher's Maps
December 5th, 2007
Since the beginning on November, Paula Scher has been exhibiting her latest painting work in Maya Stendhal Gallery, in New York. Great work.
It may be old news to some, but it’s quite a discovery for me.
I’m amazed with the density of information Scher conveys in her paintings, exploring very diverse aspects of the regions she is depicting in the maps, from income differences in New York City to the population composition of cities in the Middle East.
It resembles very much a lot of generative art projects, only made by hand. This brings a subjective and case-by-case kind of approach to the details that allows her to choose what to bring forth in a way a algorithm most probably couldn’t. Not to mention the infinitely more interesting texture that her brushstrokes produce, compared to the frequently dr—though frequently beautiful—results achieved with the computer.
On the other hand, the work has a very solid conceptual basis. From the exhibition essay:
“These are absolutely, one hundred percent inaccurate,” Paula Scher declares of her colossal map paintings. Then, after a pause: “But not on purpose.” Another pause: they’re actually “sort of right.” And therein lies their bracing paradox. Scher’s sites—Manhattan, Israel, and India among them—are instantly recognizable. Scanning the allover expanse of the canvases, you might easily pick out the swath of Central Park, the void of the Dead Sea, the dot of Mumbai. But they are also highly interpretive. The colors and graphic styles allude to loose, mostly media-fed impressions. Consider Middle East, where black paint predominates, reflecting both the dire conflict in the region and the oil underlying it.
If you know where to get more information about her art, and about other people that carry on projects similar to this in any level, please comment below.
I also dug up a link to a previous exhibition she did, with similar work, back in 2005, at the same gallery.
Via Visual Complexity.
Update: Erik Natzke does something that might be the other way around: Flash Paintings. Those are pieces of Actionscript generative art which end result get’s very close to the texture of acrylic or oil paint. Definitely worth the visit.