Galleries and Exhibits - All Forms Digital: Four Autodidacts
Greg Foley, Graham Petersburg, John Smaby, and Amrula Tahiro
July 24 - September 18, 2009
Gage Family Art Gallery
Oren Gateway Center
Augsburg College
Closing reception: Friday, September 18, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
The digital revolution has made potential artists of us all. These four artists of varying backgrounds and ages have come to working in digital media with little or no formal art training. Whether they're writing programs, playing in Photoshop, inventing non-sequitur iPhone applications, or manipulating found images, they are all creating products that could not have existed several years ago. In this age of experimentation and ever-changing media, you might find more “artists” than ever without the traditional BFA or MFA credential following their names.
Greg Foley is a photographer, screenwriter and all-around pop culture
junkie whose iTunes library is 50,000 songs and counting. He has been
interested in photography since purchasing a Kodak Instamatic in the
late 70s. He is an Asset Manager with Artspace Projects, and lives in
St. Paul.
Graham John Petersburg hails from Bryn Mawr and spends most of his days cramming information in to his brain while spewing out anything he can think of. His work in web development, emerging technologies and his love for immediacy pointed him to his next destination: the iPhone. With many more projects on the horizon for the iPhone, his new firm Unicorn Cabana looks to very busy in the near future.
John Smaby is a native Minnesotan, has lived and worked in New York and
California, and currently lives in St Paul. He has recently returned to an
old love, art, after a long career teaching philosophy and managing
information technology. He uses his digital photographs of the urban
landscape as his primary source of material and ideas.
Amrula Tahiro has been writing his own computer programs to generate
various types of digital imagery for over 10 years. His designs are primarily abstract,
though they reference subjects ranging from global warming to space exploration. He moved to the U.S. as an Oromo political refugee from Ethiopia in 1996 and sees his art as inspired by the best of his lived and imagined experience from both worlds.
All events are free and open to the public.
Gage Family Art Gallery
First Floor, Oren Gateway Center
22nd Ave. S. and Riverside Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55454
612-330-1524
www.augsburg.edu/galleries
