various sizes | machined cast acrylic sheet, ultra-chrome print | 2009 | Solo Exhibition | Diana Lowenstein Fine Art | Miami
Miami Cloud Machine is a series of eight intricately machined sculptural works made from an ultra-chrome print laminated between two acrylic sheets. Each work is flat and hangs vertically by spacers adhered to the back. The top layer of frosted-clear acrylic slightly obscures the ultra-chrome image beneath, creating a diffuse scattering of colored light across its elaborate, router-cut surface.
The vague imagery comes from low-resolution JPEGs printed large scale, as well as stills from my film Dewdrop Redux. The images have been digitally lightened to create a ghostly counterpart to the original — a nebulous, large-format image that recedes readily into evanescent abstraction. More reminiscent of a fantastical cloud formation, the physical image is adhered to its crystalline acrylic substrate and machine-cut from my exact computer drawings, aesthetically similar to my hand-cut paper works but wholly constructed using only computer tools.
Cloud Machine, having its basis in salvaged web images, in a sense pays homage to cyberspace. Although I use the computer to facilitate all of my non-paper-based artwork, I always initiate the process by first creating a paper template and then scanning it in. For Cloud Machine, I had to work completely on the computer to maintain conceptual continuity with its digital origin. The result is a new artwork reshaped by generation-loss and solidified through fleeting memory.