Festive opening: September 8, 2023 17:00–21:00

Upstream Gallery is proud to present new lenticular paintings from the Into Time series (2013 – ongoing) by Rafaël Rozendaal in the gallery’s private viewing space.

For his series Into Time, on which the artist has kept building, Rozendaal uses the medium lenticular painting, through which the image changes along with the point of view of the observer. In this way, an object can have the same physical properties as the digital works: there is movement, interaction with the viewer, and an endless number of compositions. A profound effect with multi-layer colors and a canvas that seems to move when you walk past it. In this way the physical object can refer to the digital platform.

To create a lenticular painting, the artist creates four digital frames which are subjected to a computer code that slices them into thin stripes and alternates stripes from each frame consecutively. Rozendaal compares the creating process to ‘slow programming’ taking place over the course of years. The programming of websites is a direct process in which results are immediately visible, but the lenticulars are the outcome of an ongoing experiment with changing a few variables in every group that is produced. The potential of each outcome is only to be experienced when the work is produced.

About the artist

Rafaël Rozendaal (1980) is an internet art pioneer, but his work isn’t limited to the screen. Besides using the internet as his medium, canvas and gallery space, the artist researches how his digital works can be translated into the physical world. His work tends to reflect on the possibilities of form and movement in a defined space, which requires negotiating the relationship between medium and spatiality in a translation of projects from online space to a physical space. His artistic practice comprises NFTs, websites, textile works, installations, prints, lenticular painting and writing.

Rozendaal’s work takes shape through a range of transformations – from movement into abstraction, from virtual into physical space, and from website to print – with all of them informing each other. All of Rozendaal’s works have one thing in common: they stem from a fascination with moving images and interactivity in its most basic form.

Into Time | Rafaël Rozendaal
8th – 23rd September 2023
Private viewing space | Upstream Gallery
Kloveniersburgwal 95, Amsterdam

Image preview: Into Time 22 10 02 (2022)
Lenticular Painting, 120 x 160 cm