Kevin Reuning
source material
May 29 – July 5, 2015
Opening Friday May 29, 6-9pm

Kevin Reuning, “Scenic Vistas”, 2015, HD video, oscillating fan, projector, 65 x 24 x 24 inches, installation view

Microscope Gallery is very pleased to present source material, the first solo exhibition of works by Bushwick-based artist Kevin Reuning (aka kevvy metal). With source material Reuning expands his practice of computer 3D animation through new installations, paintings, digital prints, videos and sculptures based on the models, plugins, and other elements, considering concepts of identity, authorship, and online sharing.

In several of the works on view the artist offers user generated “assets”, from open source sites, new and unintended existences. Digital print works “My Perfect Homes”, “PT Cruisers”, “Moogs”, “Things Wearing Tophats”, “Mjolnirs” recreate and flatten onto aluminum all the 3D models resulting from a search that uses the respective title as keyword on Google Warehouse. While in the video installation “Scenic Vistas”, plugins found on C4Depot for four landscape scenes (arctic, desert, mountain, ocean) are animated by the artist to play from a projector mounted onto an oscillating fan, to create a low-fi, but sensory immersive experience.

Kevin Reuning, “PT Cruisers”, 2015, dye sublimation on aluminum, 40 x 60 inches

Animation tools provide both subject and content in works including the artist’s flashe on canvas paintings. Trading mouse for brush, Reuning duplicates the original “camera paths” or three-dimensional trajectories composing the audience’s point of view during the animation process, this time with human imperfections. A laser sculpture that finds the beam trapped in 2-way mirrors is inspired by another essential and programmed element of 3D animation – light. And, for his latest 2-minute HD video “Spiral”, the artists offers a black & white world of geometric objects, within a downpour of spirals and their reflections, made entirely with the default shapes of the Cinema 4D software.


Closing out the exhibit is a vertical vinyl banner reproducing each frame of a 3D gif of the artist’s head that appears on his website and an animated video of the site url “kevvymetal.com“, which together form the physical half of a digital self-portrait, the other half of which is to be found online.

Still from “Spiral”, 2015, single-channel HD video, silent, 2 minutes

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Kevin Reuning (aka kevvy metal) is a Brooklyn-based artist working in moving image, installation and digital art. His work often involves visual explorations of virtual worlds and sculptures he creates using 3D elements assembled via software or collected from the web. Reuning’s work was featured in the 2014 Pratt Upload at Pratt Institute’s Department of Digital Arts and he released his first ebook “A Few Visuals” in September of the same year. Among his curatorial projects is the VHS publication MONOBROW made in collaboration with Julian Glander. Kevin Reuning graduated in 2012 from Boston University in Film and Science and has previously exhibited his work at the Boston University Art Gallery, Pratt Digital Arts Gallery, and Microscope Gallery.