Still Rendering

Still Rendering
Chris Coleman and Anthony Panzera
November 29 - January 15, 2018

Martin Art Gallery at Muhlenberg College presents: Still Rendering, a two person exhibition featuring works by Chris Coleman and Anthony Panzera. Still Rendering will be on view November 29 through January 15, 2018, in the Baker Center for the Arts. An opening reception with the artists will be held on Wednesday November 29, from 5 – 6:30pm. Anthony Panzera will return for a public gallery talk on his project: The Leonardo Series, on Wednesday, December 6, from 2 – 3pm, and will offer studio visits to Muhlenberg students that same day from 3 – 4:30. Chris Coleman will host a workshop on his Maxiuno software and image capture process to Muhlenberg faculty and students Tuesday November 27, from 2 – 3pm, in the Digital Lab [CFA lower level].

Still Rendering is an exhibition that explores radically different approaches to applying aesthetics, science and technology to contemporary art practice.  Anthony Panzera's project The Leonardo Series uses the methods outlined in Leonardo da Vinci’s writings and anatomical renderings to explore proportion in a body of new figurative work.  Chris Coleman's Secure Shell Copy Series comprises digital images and videos derived from 3D scans of the human body that are manipulated with algorithms and data.  While both artists are concerned with how geometric volume is visually articulated, their depictions radically diverge: their adoption of, and interest in science and technology is a study in contrast.  Where their methods of making art radically differ, the thematic focus on how a portrait is made inexorably bonds these two artists. 

Panzera uses historical techniques to systematically replicate a mode of studio practice that in the 15th century was the cutting edge of scientific practice for visual description.   Five hundred years later, he bridges time through shared methodology in an attempt to come to a better understanding of the proportional theories of one of the greatest anatomical artists of all time.    

Coleman's various algorithms reduce the information from his scans to the point where the figure is barely recognizable. The Shell (a three dimensional model) is infused with data, expanding and contracting as it tries to accommodate the flux of information. The end product takes the form of digital prints and video work, both of which are on display in this exhibition.