March 20, 2021- April 24, 2021 — the Ghost and the Maze Jovencio de la Paz
March 20 - April 24, 2021 Opening Reception: Saturday, March 20, 12 - 4PM
Gallery hours: Open by appointment on Saturdays, 12pm-3pm. Please send us an email at specialist.gallery@gmail.com or DM us on instagram (@specialist_sea) to plan your visit!
To keep our community safe, we are limiting gallery occupancy to 3 visitors at a time during the open gallery hours between 12-3pm. Masks are required (let us know if you need one!), and plenty of hand sanitizer will be available.
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Specialist Gallery is pleased to present the Ghost and the Maze, new works by Jovencio de la Paz that map the terrain of computerized weaving. Working between wall, table, and floor, these textiles operate as a spatial exploration as much as visualization of the algorithmic processes utilized to create them. Referring to the ancient sign of the labyrinth and the ghost in the machine, the visual language at play relinquishes much formal determination to the algorithmic operations the artist chooses. The cloth is neither entirely human nor completely machine in origin. What emerges is often an alien visual language, a vernacular of line, color, and shape that surfaces from the interior, computer world of algorithms.
Jovencio de la Paz works in a space between digital technology and hand weaving. Focused on creating specialized designed software and drawing tools, de la Paz collaborates with algorithms, self-generating patterns, and computational creativity to explore the related histories of computer technology and the loom. The resulting textiles, hand-woven on a computerized Thread Controller loom, display a tension between the physical world and the digital, the organic and technological, and the haptic quality of cloth versus the perceived rigidity of the numerical.
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Jovencio de la Paz received a Master of Fine Art in Fibers from the Cranbrook Academy of Art (2012) and a Bachelor of Fine Art with an emphasis on Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2008). He has exhibited work in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, most recently at Objects: USA 2020 at R & Company in New York, NY; the Cranbrook Museum of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI; Vacation Gallery in New York, NY; The 2019 Portland Biennial at Disjecta in Portland, OR; The Museum of Craft and Folk-art in Los Angeles, CA; The Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, CO; Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, South Korea; Ditch Projects, Springfield, OR; The Art Gym, Marylhusrt, OR; ThreeWalls, Chicago, IL; The Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, OR; 4th Ward Projects, Chicago, IL; The Sculpture Center, Cleveland, OH; SOIL Gallery, Seattle, WA; Roots & Culture Contemporary Art Center, Chicago; The Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Uri Gallery, Seoul, South Korea, among others. He regularly teaches at schools of art, craft, and design throughout the country, such as the Ox Bow School of Art in Saugatuck, Michigan, the Haystack Mountain School of Craft in Deer Isle, Maine, and the Arrowmont School of Craft in Tennessee. He is an Assistant Professor and head of Fibers at the University of Oregon in Eugene, OR.
