Synthesizer @ NAB Gallery

April 21, 2007

Liz and I went to go see my friend Matt’s latest show, over at NAB Gallery.

Downstairs, we’re greeted by Tracy and find out that Matt’s work made the cover of UR Chicago. How awesome is that?

I’ve seen aspects of this piece before, in smaller segments (and larger aspect ratios). I wasn’t sure what to expect, as I think I saw a few variations on plexiglass in the past.

What’s really cool is that the piece goes around the entire gallery space, and measures out at about 70′ x 1′. A result of both the myriad of images and the size, it’s almost impossible to not want to go in for a closer look.

Corner view.

As someone who works with Flash, I’m partial to vector images. So of course I’m immediately drawn to this piece. Looking over the details, I slowly realized how fitting the vectors were.

I’m used to seeing logos in vector format, and that was a lot of the feel I got looking around. Every image that appeared was almost iconic. Even looking at faces and people that I recognized… even *those* were iconic in some way, shape or form.

I also really dug how layered everything was, how there was a great deal of depth in a two-dimensional layout. Some of the images looked like they might have been bitmap images to start, and were converted through Flash to give it that rough/dirty vectorized look. Place those fills alongside very thin line-traces, and that just makes for a ton of interesting combinations.

Many of my favorite sections were like this one (above). There’s something about the one image, coming through multiple columns of color – I’m not sure I can articulate why I dug it, but I did. I guess… in addition to the layering of images, these moments added even more depth, as they seemed to interact with the very background.

The perspective is off, but through a small passageway… the gallery space extends into an adjoining work/reception area.

Inside, we got some beer and wine, and hung out to chat a bit. This area was really inviting, and very cozy overall. It felt a bit like being able to sneak “behind the scenes” in a way. Here, we got to talk with Matt, Tracy and Nuanda for a while.

Matt, talking with gallery visitors.

Nearby, there was a work area that belonged to one of the gallery artists (I think his name is Craig Anderson). There was a ton of neat stuff in this area, and I couldn’t help but take a few pics.