Machine Vision Artist Feature: Noelle Mason
MACHINE VISION
March 3 – April 29, 2023
Join Candela Gallery over the next few weeks as we feature artists from Machine Vision, a survey of tech-based photographic works: Michael Borowski, Kurt Caviezel, Adam Chin, Rashed Haq, Noelle Mason, Drew Nikonowicz, Maija Tammi, and Corinne Vionnet.
NOELLE MASON
In the back rooms of the Machine Vision exhibition, Noelle Mason's large cyanotype works depict striking historical art imagery: the Madonna with a crown of nails, disorienting layers of classically posed figures. The artist's latest series is a continuation of a practice pairing alternative process with surveillance and x-ray technologies.
Bearded Saint, 2022. Cyanotype, 33 x 22 3/4 inches. Edition of 3 + 2AP. $5500, Unframed. INQUIRE >
The Evangelist, 2022. Cyanotype, 32.75 × 22.5 inches. Edition of 3 + 2AP. $5500, Unframed. INQUIRE >
Museum conservation teams use x-radiograph to examine underpainting and underlying structure in their artworks, allowing historians and conservationists to generate an image of what a work may have originally looked like, or illuminate the artist’s decision-making.
In Ecstasy of the Vision Machines, Mason has used the early cyanotype process, immediately recognizable from its beautiful blue, to transform these images, flattening them through the monochromatic printing process and further distorting the lines between seen and unseen.
Titian, Venus with a Mirror, c.1555. Oil on Canvas.
Blue Venus, 2021. Cyanotype, 33 5/8 x 24 1/4 inches. Edition of 3 + 2AP. $5500, Unframed. INQUIRE >
Blue Venus presents another portrait beneath Titian's Venus with a Mirror, a painting which has already included the viewer through its use of the mirror. In this context, the mirror reminds us of painting’s role in the development of photographic thinking and the way in which these two art forms share a history of representation that continue to influence each other to this day.
Blue Virgin reveals the many nails used to hold together a Medieval wood Madonna sculpture, a nod to the crucified body of Christ, and evokes the tradition of Madonna paintings cloaked in Marian blue.
As we continue to look into the future of image-making, questioning the lines between human hand and machine, we fear we may be deceived. Noelle Mason's Ecstasy of the Vision Machines reminds us that there has always been more which lies beneath.
The Triumph of Love Over War, 2022. Cyanotype, 20 ¼ x 27 7/8 inches. Edition of 3 + 2AP. $3200, Unframed. INQUIRE >
ABOUT NOELLE
Noelle Mason (b. 1977, USA) is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work is about the subtle seductiveness of power facilitated by systems of visual and institutional control. Noelle's work has been shown at the Ringling Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece, and at Phest International Festival of Photography in Monopi, Italy. She is the recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Artist Grant, Jerome fellowship, the Florida Prize for Contemporary Art, the Southern Prize and most recently the LensCulture Art Photography Award, the PHmuseum Grant Prize, the Center Sante Fe Director’s Choice Award and the Female in Focus award from the British Journal of Photography.
MACHINE VISION
APRIL 6, 2023 | ARTIST PANEL
Join Candela Gallery, TONIGHT, Thursday, April 6th as we welcome featured Machine Vision artists into the space for a panel covering topics regarding the overlaps in technology and photography: surveillance, artificial intelligence, NFTs, and more. Doors open at 6:00pm. Panel discussions and live broadcast begin at 6:30pm.