“Synthetic Landscapes” by Vita Eruhimovitz

Synthetic Landscapes
by
Vita Eruhimovitz

On display November 4 – December 18
Free & open to the public during gallery hours

In her mixed media exhibition Synthetic Landscapes, Eruhimovitz contemplates a fragmented human-made environment constructed from recollections and mediated impressions of natural phenomena. Clouds, mountains, earth, and sky turn into commodities and objects of desire. Eruhimovitz explores the melancholy of shiny objects: colorful Plexiglas constructs dipped in paint and tar recall fall clouds, with bottoms so heavy they nearly break into rain. The Rain Machine is almost a guillotine, and mountains become the backdrop in an REI ad.

All works in this exhibition originate in digital images and are in part machine-made in digital sculpture process. The added layer of machine interpretation creates new context and meaning of what is to become artificial nature. These objects are creations of pure simulacra, far removed from the phenomena they may signify. They gain their fleeting existence with the glance of a window-shopper and retire into limbo. Coexisting in a space, they refuse to grow into one landscape emphasizing the difficulty of contemporary western culture to holistically perceive its environment.

Artist Bio:
Vita Eruhimovitz (born Kharkov, Ukraine) grew up in Israel and currently lives and works in Saint Louis and New York. Vita holds a BFA from Shenkar College (2012) and an MFA from Washington University in Saint Louis (2015). Vita’s background in computer science and bioinformatics and her interest in science and technology inspire and inform her work. She works in sculpture, installation, digital, and mixed media. Vita is interested in the ways the modern culture perceives nature and pushes the boundaries of the physical nature into the digital realm. She explores the ways in which human-made spaces, systems and relationships interconnect with the environment that is being constantly modified by humans. Her recent focus has been in interactive sculpture and digital fabrication. Some of her projects reflect on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the secret life of algorithms. Vita is currently a visiting professor in William Paterson University in New Jersey. Her art has been shown nationally and internationally, including, the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum and the Contemporary Art Museum in Saint Louis, and at the San Diego Art Institute Museum. Her award-winning public sculpture is currently installed on Cortex campus in Saint Louis.

http://www.vitaeruhimovitz.com/