The Ishidots Festival

Paul Kolker is pleased to present The Ishidots Festival at the PAUL KOLKER collection from May 12 through September 9, 2016 in attribution to Dr. Shinobu Ishihara and his century-old color vision charts of painted dots; still used by ophthalmologists to test for color blindness.

Kolker’s works incorporate fractal-like dot patterns; such as those on our digital television, computer and cell phone screens. His paintings employ a signature palette of elemental RGBY colors including black, white and their tints and shades in acryl- ic; a process which he has coined fracolor based on the fractal geometric basis for color vision and perception about which Kolker’s works experiment… And as Dr. Ishihara’s test charts also function.

Paul Kolker (b. 1935) is a New York based artist with doctorate degrees in medicine and law. He is Emeritus Chief of Car- diothoracic Surgery at North Shore/ LIJ Glen Cove Hospital, having practiced cardiothoracic surgery on Long Island from 1969 to 2013. In October 2001 Kolker moved his Long Island studio to his current address in the Chelsea art district so that he could produce his works and curate his exhibitions as an experiment in perception. His studio and gallery have together become his laboratory in which the viewer is the measuring instrument for Kolker’s art as a perceptual experiment. The Ishidots Festival is Kolker’s fifty-third solo exhibition.

Part of Dr. Kolker’s almost surgical algorithm for his process laden techniques used in this exhibition are: decalcomania paint transfers, silk screening, layered vinyl stencils, large format digital printing and c-printing. Most of the works in The Ishidots Festival are modular and scaled down to 22×22 inch panels to mirror the compacted fields of vision and the optical color mixing effects of Dr. Ishihara’s 1915 invention.

In Paul Kolker:The Ishidots Festival, sixty-eight paintings and sculpture will be on view at the Paul Kolker collection from May 12, 2016 through September 9, 2016 at 511 West 25th Street in Chelsea adjacent to the High Line between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues. For further information please email info@paulkolker.com.