Justin Bower

Richard Garet

The challenges of 2020 have transformed our lives and propelled our world into an already increasingly digital experience. In many ways, our virtual constructs have now become closer to reality than the physical world itself. “Deconstructed Realities” imagines a post-human world where our identities and perceptions are susceptible to technology’s unconscious influence.

Justin Bower’s anonymous portraits depict a de-stabilized experience of humanity. His paintings question how we define ourselves in the digital age while suggesting the impossibility of grasping such a slippery notion. The shifting facial features of his subjects induce a de-stabilizing experience for its viewers while the expressive strokes resembling digital glitches place them in a frozen state of becoming.

Alternatively, Richard Garet’s practice deconstructs reality by using old and new technologies to translate source media into abstractions. In doing so, he brings to light the unconscious experiences of contemporary life. For his Perceptual Series, Garet first translates sound into a visual composition before removing the audio, leaving behind lavish landscapes of continually reconfigured color and mood.