Elsie Kagan
the future is certain
5/3/24 - 6/5/24
Elsie Kagan: the future is certain explores the emerging and unsettling symbiosis between artist and algorithm. Her process involves iterative conversations with deep learning image generators and results in startling works that probe the shifting boundaries of illusion, sensemaking, and abstraction in a digital age.
the future is certain, give us time to work it out, 2024
flashe and tinted plaster on panel, 24” x 18”
Kagan brings a timely exploration of human-machine collaboration, employing a deep learning AI model as a studio companion, research tool and foil for improvisation. This process guides her to surprising places, which hover between abstraction and landscape. Amidst the anxieties and potential threat of technological change, the future is certain finds beauty, air, and optimism. Kagan's openness to what this partnership holds is reflected in her lyrical responses and grounded in the materiality of the paint. She uses a prompt as a seed for exploration and articulates it brushstroke by brushstroke. The work invites viewers to bring their own visual vocabularies to the conversation as Kagan's gestural shorthand and glitchy passages evoke water, wood, stone, and birds in flight.
Elsie Kagan
Elsie Kagan is a New York City-based painter, originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work draws together divergent languages into conversation with a material-based approach to abstraction, creating visually dense and exuberant paintings. Kagan recently mounted solo exhibitions at eeeee in Mexico City, Sweet Lorraine Gallery, Brooklyn NY, Mandell Center in Hartford, CT, and Rivington Design House Gallery, New York, NY, and as well as a two-person show at the Soapbox Gallery, New York, NY. Selected group exhibitions and curatorial projects include RushArts, Ground Floor Gallery, 440 Gallery, and Arts@Renaissance, all in New York City; Crane Arts, Philadelphia, PA; and Zilkah Gallery at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT. Kagan’s work has been featured in publications such as the Washington Post, Flavorpill, the Brooklyn Record, Studio Visit Magazine, and Looking at Painting. Residencies include R.A.R.O Madrid, Vermont Studio Center, Residency Unlimited, and Chautauqua. The recipient of several awards and grants, Kagan most recently received a fellowship and grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and from the Sustainable Arts Foundation. Kagan holds an MFA from the Tyler School of Art and a BA from Wesleyan University.
Identifying a real lack in accessibility and opportunity for artists who are raising children, Kagan founded and launched Interlude Artist Residency in 2019. A non-profit residency program in Upstate New York, Interlude is unique in serving the needs of artist parents. Kagan is Executive Director for the program, which is serving about 25 artists per year.
