About Synthèse… The Marriage of Figural

Paul Kolker is pleased to present About Synthèse… The Marriage of Figural at the Paul Kolker collection from January 31 through March 22, 2019. The exhibition, produced and curated by the artist, features Kolker’s new experimental paintings, prints, sculpture and videos which he calls ‘synthèse’ because they evoke the illusion of a synthetic transformation fusing his abstract and figural paintings. This is Kolker’s sixty-eighth solo exhibition.

In 1975, Kolker acquired an Advent three-tube color projection television and began his studies of optical color mixing he observed in the low definition range of 75 dpi overlying dot grids of colored light. Each dot projected onto the 45×60 inch curved screen measured nearly one eighth inch. Although the suggested viewing distance was ten feet or beyond, while up close the figural image looked like an abstract dot painting. This early adaptive video practice influenced Kolker’s art production and resulted in a minimalist painting process he called ‘fracolor’ founded in ancient tapestry and mosaic making, fractionating colors into tiles, stitches and dots.

In 2000, when flat screen televisions became part of his new vision laboratory, ‘fracolor’ had become Kolker’s avant-garde divisionism. The liquid crystal diode flat screens of our televisions and devices use dots of light which emit gamut’s of colors. Fracolor is also founded in brain science and a four-color processing concept which governs our understanding of the complex physiology of human vision. Optic nerve pathways either carry green and red or yellow and blue signals which have been evoked photochemically in the retina and become integrated and processed in a top-down manner by the brain connecting feelings, cognition for an expansive visual perception. Kolker’s fracolor theory also comports with our current understanding of particle physics and molecular biology; implicit in all matter, and reduced to a dot

The idea of synthèse came to Kolker in June 2010 during his return boat trip from Capri to Naples in a heavy rain storm. The artist looked outside through the fast moving hydrofoil’s rain-dotted windows which amplified sprays of sunlight sneaking through cracks in the storm clouds and vividly colored his ephemeral perception of layers of dots, which were empirically documented by his camera’s view of the seascape. Each translucent raindrop appeared to be filled with the colors of the subjacent figural images. The composite image on his cell phone was rendered somewhat abstract in a painterly manner; as if the abstraction were purposely planned with care not to anamorphically distort the figural image… but to transform the image using each high speed splattering raindrop as a halftone color filter to create an illusion which is neither figural or abstract… but synthetic as a light activated water molecule or dot, refracting light into colors, and altering the beholder’s perceptions in unexpected ways.

Kolker also curates this exhibition as a spectacle transcending the mere two dimensions of his canvases. He introduces the notion of stereoscopic depth and a third dimension to the viewer’s illusions when using the provided and complimentary anaglyph red-cyan glasses. The fusion of the abstract dot painting with his figural painting adapted from a photograph of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2012 rendition of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro becomes the storyline for this exhibition about the marriage of the figural and abstract. Kolker simultaneously experiments with his synthèse process for art making and the perceptual effects of beholding his synthèse works and this exhibition-as-an-independent-work-of-art. As in a perceptual psychology experiment, the viewer of the exhibition becomes the measuring instrument for the ‘synthèse’ illusions.

Paul Kolker (b. 1935) is a New York based artist with doctorate degrees in medicine and law. He is Fellow American College of Surgeons, Fellow American College of Legal Medicine and Emeritus Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Northwell 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. About Synthèse… The Marriage of Figural is Kolker’s sixty-eighth solo exhibition.

In Paul Kolker: About Synthèse… The Marriage of Figural, thirty one new works are on view from January 31 through March, 2019 at the Paul Kolker collection, 511 West 25th Street in Chelsea, adjacent to the HighLine between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues.

Paul Kolker: About Topsy Turvy Perceptions… October 1962 is on view through January 26, 2018.
Paul Kolker: Abstract Decalcomania… An Experiment in Perception is ongoing at 600 Third Avenue.

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