Apophenia

Harvey Goldman

Exhibition April 30 - June 1

Opening Reception: Saturday May 3, 5-7pm 

 The Dedee Shattuck Gallery is pleased to present Apophenia, a solo exhibition of works by renowned digital artist, animator, and local educator Harvey Goldman. This exhibition showcases recent works from four digital series along with examples of early ceramic pieces, which have inspired his digital surface textures. Animated shorts created by Goldman in collaboration with composer Jing Wang are also on view. This exhibit celebrates Harvey Goldman’s retirement from 36 years of teaching at University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, where he currently holds the position of Chancellor Professor of Design.

This exhibit focuses on four recent series: the Extremities and Digits Series, the Forest Abstracted Series, the Veiled Ancestors Series and Landscape Series. Each series represents a body of work that examines particular forms through Goldman’s unique digital layering process. Rich with color and texture, the images are painstaking amalgamations of photographic elements. The resulting imagery is curious and mystical, but close examination reveals familiar features, such as a lacy lichen edge or a patterned expansion of a fingerprint.

Goldman received his Masters of Fine Arts from University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the recipient of National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and Ford Foundation grants. His work has been featured in three SIGGRAPH exhibitions, and is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, The DeCordova Museum, and the Iota Center for Visual Music. 

Extremities and Digits Series

The intention of the series of work is to pay homage to our most primary of tools, the human hand and foot. The delicate and complex anatomy of our collective hands and feet, their transcendent efficacy in relation to early tool development and usage, their gestural and communicative capacities and their potency as primal tabulation and measuring devices, gives them a signification I find fecund with metaphorical meaning and energy. Their evolutionary role in both our development and the world of high technology are an on going source of wonderment and contemplation.

Veiled Ancestors Series

This selection of work most relates to the title for this exhibit, “Apophenia”. I am self diagnosed. Since I can remember I have been seeing faces and images where none exist. I can’t seem to help myself. With this series of work the subject matter is again derived from direct experiences in the forest. The work starts with photographs which are brought into the studio. After long periods of contemplation and percolation, semblances of facial anatomy begin to emerge and appear. The series relies on a distinct use of frontal bilateral symmetry in conjuring these ethereal beings.

The Forest Abstracted Series

In this series of work diverse compositions of the forest are photographed and brought into the studio environment. At this point they are studied and augmented with the use of digital technology. Many times images from diverse seasons are composited to create a new gestalt. Combined images of the lush and densely populated forest floor are joined with pristine forest depictions captured while meandering through the woods after a dense New England blizzard.  The sensual contours of the untouched snow create a seductive counterpoint to the tumultuous dense thicket found at the end of summer.

The Landscape Series

I often ponder why the “landscape image” has been such an enduring and enchanting theme throughout the history of art making.  As well as the almost universal enjoyment of being outside and soaking up the photons, for me it is not as much about what we see as the meaning derived. The metaphors of fertility, grace, shelter, brutality, and death elicit strong emotional connections. The personifications of fragility, delicacy, strength and power bring me back time and time again. I like to visit the same places throughout the seasons and over the years. I find myself developing relationships, inner dialogs and stories with these landscapes. They embolden me to see and contemplate the world in fresh and unexpected ways.

Harvey Goldman has created critically acclaimed work in the fields of ceramics, digital imaging, animation and music. He teaches digital media in the Department of Design at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where he currently holds the position of Chancellor Professor of Design. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Ford Foundation and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. Goldman's work is included in numerous private and public collections including the Iota Center for Visual Music, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Everson Museum of Art, Decordova Museum, Currier Museum of Art, and the Crocker Art Museum. His animations have been screened throughout the world including, the Smithsonian's Hirshhon Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the White Box Museum, Beijing, China. His interests include gardening, storytelling, world music, sound exploration, language development, writing systems and basketball . He resides in Dartmouth, Massachusetts with his wife and fellow artist, Deborah Coolidge.

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