ICD Brookfield Place Arts announces the March 3rd opening of “Generascope,” Seife’s first dedicated solo show in the region. Seife’s mixed-media practice has always been one of hyper-realist, hand-painted intricacy combined with digital tools. At the nexus of the contemporary and the historic, the global and the culturally specific, Seife’s exhibition brings together his long-standing interest in traditional textiles and embroideries of the MENA region with cutting-edge technological tools of the digital art space. For “Generascope,” Seife has collaborated with developer Andrew Cassetti to create a JavaScript application whose algorithmic code transforms 11 hand-drawn seed images into infinite new iterations through mirroring, slicing, reflecting and animating.
Inspired from childhood by the intricate iconography of the carpets in his Miami home, Jason Seife has since traveled extensively throughout the region, meeting the weavers of various textile traditions and returning to his studio to at once meticulously recreate the rich colors and symbols while incorporating contemporary and digitally-informed materials, formats, and tools.
Seife has recently launched NFT artworks, created through the Generascope, which sold out immediately. Works are currently available for secondary-market purchase on the platform OpenSea. These works represent a selection of infinitely possible digital iterations taken from 11 drawings. The exhibition will comprise several large-scale digital animations, four large-scale painted works on canvas as well as the limited edition prints available online. Together, they complete a digital/analogue loop that is the material proposition of this project. For Seife, this process of making and reimagining codes, collaboration and creation embodies the relationship between man/machine and digital/analogue.
“When thinking of this project I knew that ICD Brookfield Place, at the heart of Dubai’s International Financial Centre, would be the ideal location for far-reaching public engagement with my art,” notes Seife. “My hand-drawn images which underpin these artworks absorb much influence from the codes and traditions of the region—from arabesque to Islamic geometry and carpet designs. Through the scope of this project, I’m able to present these familiar and important contributions to regional visual culture in a way that challenges the viewer to interpret and digest this artwork in an unconventional context while reimagining them in dialogue with new developments in technology.”
Malak Abu-Qaoud, Arts and Events Manager at ICD Brookfield Place, added: “We are honored to host this first exhibition in Dubai by the incredibly talented Jason Seife. We look forward to kicking off the arts season with this phenomenal digital/physical exhibition of hybrid mediums pushing the boundaries of what shape mixed media exhibitions can take. The exhibition reflects ICD Brookfield Place’s commitment to showcasing artwork that resonates with our community. Jason’s passion for traditional, regional textile patters speak to so many who have grown up around these signs and symbols – here brought to new, contemporary life.”
Throughout the month-long exhibition ICD Brookfield Place Arts and Seife will host a program of talks and workshops featuring Mohamed Maktabi of Iwam Maktabi in conversation with Nadine Khalil, as well as hands-on screen-printing workshops, all free and open to the public. The exhibition will run through 3rd April 2022.
