Sharon Switzer: Works

Growth & Proliferation

Artist Statement

My artistic practice has always centred on an interest in digital media. I am not interested in exploring new technologies for their own sake, but instead explore ways that I can personalize commercial applications, ‘misusing’ them for my own purposes. My early visual work explored the digital, both as a space for creative expression and as a way to ponder the verisimilitude of photography. More recently I have been creating semi-generative videos and still images in collaboration with my computer. My method is slow and painstaking, with over 80 different interrelated options for transforming individual pixels, the choice of which has an effect on other and subsequent algorithms.

With the still images I consider the end result to be akin to a digital ‘painting’, but here the process is not so much expressive as it is responsive. I respond, often with surprise, to the results of my choices, and keep on in this mode until I reach a result that I am satisfied with. This process can take anywhere from a few days to numerous weeks for each new form, after which I create a series of individual compositions and physical prints from a 10-minute timeline. At 30 frames a second, I am left to search through and choose from over 18,000 individual frames for the still images that I present.

Availability & Pricing

Please contact the gallery for more information, including current availability and pricing.

EXHIBITIONS

Trace • Copy • Render: Alex Fischer, Rita Maas, Susana Reisman, Sharon Switzer, Circuit Gallery @Prefix ICA, Toronto, September 2016