Rollin Leonard
Trunks, Stems & Heads
October 12
through November 9, 2013
Saturday, October 12 7-11PM
TRANSFER presents the work of Rollin Leonard ::: October 17-20 in London
Saturday, November 9 7-11PM
Saturdays 12 – 6 PM
Viewings are also available by appointment.
A handmade publication produced by the artist will be available for collection from the gallery. This exhibition catalog documents the new body of work alongside two essays produced for the exhibition:
“Be a Body, Rollin Leonard” by Marina Galperina – managing editor of ANIMAL New York, journalist, video and digital art curator based in Brooklyn.
“Art and Mutilation: Some Thoughts on the Work of Rollin Leonard” by Seth Watter – writer and curator currently based in Providence, RI where he is a PHD candidate at Brown University.
Download the PDF version (11 MB)
Trunks, Stems, & Heads is a new body of work from Rollin Leonard. The focus of his first solo exhibition is the human form – organs, limbs and torsos are strewn about, arranged into impossible creatures, disfigured through collision and installed as highly aestheticized, meticulously polished piles of digitally mutilated forms. The work is shiny and fleshy, and offers a new take on portraiture that captures the shifting perception of the physical self in our contemporary digital moment.
Human faces, bodies, and familiar objects are frequent subjects for the artist – he is interested in our innate ability to recognize the objects despite scrambling or distorting the image. A face, a subject with high visual elasticity, is especially resistant to being obscured or lost in pattern. Just as you see faces in wood grain, clouds, and shadows, your mind easily knits human form together even when fragmented.
The artist’s photographic practice serves as the basis for the work. After capturing his subjects at precise angles, Leonard manipulates their bodies into highly composed and calculated compositions of looped moving image, digital collage and plexiglass installation pieces.
ABOUT THE ARTIST :::
ROLLIN LEONARD (USA 1984) lives and works in Portland, Maine where he
maintains a photography and production studio. He has shown large-scale
video installations, photographic prints, and web-based work since 2004.
His medium varies but his conceptual approach is consistent – projecting
the logic, meaning, or pattern from one domain into another, often using
the human body as a vehicle to do so. Leonard earned a BA in Philosophy
and a BA in Painting from the University of Minnesota in 2007.
Leonard's work has been shown at The Photographer’s Gallery, London; Point Ephémère, Paris; Museum of the Moving Image, New York; Essential Existence Gallery, Leipzig; Moving Image Art Fair, New York & London; NADA Art Fair, New York; and online at Fach & Asendorf Gallery.
TRANSFER is an exhibition space that explores the friction between networked practice and its physical instantiation.
The gallery supports artists working with computer-based practices to realize aggressive installation projects within our walls.
Viewings are also available by appointment with directors@transfergallery.com
Additional gallery hours may be held for specific shows. Refer to the exhibition pages for details.
TRANSFER is located in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn near the intersection of Metropolitan and Morgan.
