ARTWORK > SWIPES

Swipes - 40” x 29” - archival inkjet print, laminated and mounted on Dibond, wooden frame.

For his Swipe series, Nelemans examines how personal gestures dictate what we might desire from a device. Using translucent gelatin to highlight RGB color filters, he swipes his finger across a digital screen capturing a lasting record of his marks. He flattens the resulting image and removes any trace of identifying fingerprint to create a universal abstraction. Digital media, unlike analog materials, is valued for precision and regularity often producing sharp, focused images. Here, Nelemans subverts its intended use to create a flattened kaleidoscopic abstraction that still traces the history of his own hand on the surface of the screen. This physical swipe gesture suggests that our primal imperatives persist even with access to the most advanced devices.

– Lisa Sutcliffe, Curator of Photography and Media Arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum.