Few days ago has taken place the closing of Trunks, Stems, & Heads a solo show by Rollin Leonard at Transfer Gallery where he presented some new great pieces. The photographic work of Rollin is highly focused on human bodies which frequently is his own body and portraits the source to be manipulated and distorted. This time Rollin has also used several models to continue the mesmerising animated and static work in which for some pieces he has translated pixels into cells of plexiglas by installing and distorting the bodies cell by cell, this also reflects how manual is his experimental work process, it doesn't matter if it's physical or digital Rollin animates and works everything manually creating somehow conscious glitches. See more;
"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." - Transfer Gallery
Yes / No, 2013
animated loop, photographic video application
360° / 18 Lilia, 2013
36 second Yes / No, 2013, animated loop, photographic video
Cell Body (Panty), (Stocking) and (Joe) 2013
730 1 by 1, 702 1 by 1 and 838 1 by 1 inch pieces respectively
c-print face-mounted to 1/2 inch cell-cast Plexiglas
Installation view at Transfer Gallery_
Crash Kiss (Guthrie & Ellis), 2013
Crash Kiss (Jorge & Giselle), 2013
Arm Ball (Rollin), 2013
Arm Ball (Lilia), 2013
Cell Face (Rollin), 2013
41 2 by 2 inch pieces, c-print face-mounted to 1/2 inch cell-cast Plexiglas
Belly Chain on a Donut- Shaped Universe, 2013
tile texture for the Donuts_