Contemporary muralist Aches, the artist responsible for the now preserved Savita mural painted the day before the referendum to repeal the 8th Amendment, will open his inaugural exhibition in the Atelier Maser gallery on Thursday March 14.
Following a two-month artist residency in the Atelier Maser studio, Aches, known for his “glitch” and RGB style of murals found on the streets throughout Ireland and indeed the globe, will unveil his hugely anticipated new body of work in the recently opened gallery.
For his first exhibition, Aches utilizes his signature style to explore the contradictions that exist in the digital world that we live in today using a limited colour palette consisting solely of Red, Green and Blue colour variations to create seemingly digital portraits. The RGB palette is specifically selected to emanate the colours that we see most often on screen that create the digital representations of the people we know.
The work itself is centred around the potentially negative effects that are created by communicating through technology on a constant basis. Digital apps are designed to make it so simple to connect with anyone, anywhere, yet in many cases, it actually creates a bigger distance between the people we are the closest with. Moreover, today’s generation are so used to communicating with friends who are identified by a digital photo on screen, rather than a true representation of the real person.
It is so easy, and convenient, to be constantly in touch with each other online, however, because we are constantly updated on the lives of our friends – a slight mystery is diminished and almost gives us an excuse not to meet up in person.
Aches has illustrated this idea through a series of handcrafted, pixelated portraits. Taking a digital photo as the starting point, each portrait has been created with the RGB palette. Hand mixing every colour to correlate to the onscreen pixel tones, Aches has created abstract representations of faces familiar to him – with intricate detail and many, many layers of paint (spray and acrylic).
Up-close the work can be viewed as a woven web of colour overlays, but from a distance – the portraits emerge. This allows the viewer to have multiple experiences of the same painting, which is paralleled with the idea of interacting with the many digital aliases of the same person.
For the exhibition at Atelier Maser, the artist invites the viewer to take photos of the work on their phone. The image captured will create a clearer representation of the person in the portrait, less pixelated and more lifelike – therefore bringing the image full circle.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Hailing from Dublin, Aches has been creating work since the age of 15. Boasting an impressive repertoire of work, he has been invited to design and create original artwork for projects in countries such as Denmark, Ireland, Hungary, Spain, Sweden, Miami, Scotland, Austria, Switzerland, England and USA.
Aches artistic practice is shared in an equal balance between contemporary murals and studio work. He has collaborated with Irish artist Maser and a series of international artists including Insane51 and Fork4.
He sees the process of painting, and indeed the process of creating, quite like a form of personal meditation. A creative outlet that evokes a space of stillness for both the artist and the viewer. Having studied Visual Communications in NCAD, Dublin, Aches credits the design skills learned here for influencing his extremely precise and technical style of work.
ABOUT ATELIER MASER
Atelier Maser is a dedicated gallery space for artists transitioning or adding an extra dimension to their work format from the street whilst also providing a platform for art lovers to be able to own some of the work of the artists whose work they encounter and love on their commute and daily journeys around the city.
Traditionally overlooked as a credible art form, street art has gained in both popularity and stature within the art world and beyond. By creating this space, Maser has committed to nurturing upcoming talent within the community he champions with artist-in-residence programmes to help artists refine and hone their craft and also to help develop their business and commercial nous.
Atelier Maser intends to play host to four artists a year in an endeavour to expose the Irish art scene to the wealth of talent that has transitioned from the street to the studio.
Contemporary art within galleries is now more inclusive of the formats that take place on the street, from graffiti to huge immersive installations and Atelier Maser aims to connect the two worlds in Ireland a little bit more.
“As Atelier Maser grows I’d hope that we can open minds within the art world whilst bringing joy to the myriad of art lovers around the world who appreciate the wealth and volume of contemporary work coming out of Ireland right now.”
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