American artist Johnny Abrahams’ first solo show in the Middle East, “Haptic Trajectories”, focuses on the intertwined history of technology and the fibre arts, starting from the first IBM computers, whose punch card technology was based on 19th century Jacquard looms through to binary and bytecode weaving. The artist’s visual vocabulary and his process-oriented practice are inspired by weaving, but the resulting artworks definitely have a digital look.
Abrahams’ meticulous process is quite similar to the way that code is built up line by line. He uses tape to create repetitive line patterns that are superimposed, rotated and slightly phased to destabilise the viewer’s gaze. This dizzying effect and the similarities between technology and weaving are especially visible in his moiré paintings done with acrylics on canvas. These works have the waviness of watered silks, but also look like the render errors that might appear when you take a photo of a screen, as well as the Java Lake applet that was ubiquitous in the early days of the internet. The high contrast between the figures and background tricks the eye into perceiving after-images of colour where there is none, creating the curious sensation of getting screenburn from acrylics on canvas.
Jyoti Kalsi is an arts-enthusiast based in Dubai.
“Haptic Trajectories” will run at The Mine, Al Quoz, until November 9.
