The IMC Lab + Gallery is pleased to present Iviva Olenick in a solo exhibition, “Reach Out and Touch Me.” This exhibition is the result of Olenick's nine month participation in IMC’s Co- Create residency program, which pairs artists with technologists to enable the creation of new participatory and socially conscious art forms.
Olenick translates hashtags, selfies, tweets and emoticons into sculptures and paintings ranging in scale from handheld to life-sized. The contemplative process of her practice, including embroidery, weaving, painting, stop motion, requires deliberate pacing. Each word, stitch, or stop motion frame relates to a moment of intimacy or human connection. These painstaking and time intensive techniques contrast with the speed and ease with which social media, selfies and tweets proliferate. To elucidate contradictions between online and offline behavior, Olenick re-contextualizes handcrafts within digital culture, posting images online and creating stop motion animations of embroideries stitch by stitch, and tweets letter by letter.
Olenick's installation at IMC Lab + Gallery treats the space as a type of library with discrete listening and viewing stations. As visitors approach both life-sized and hand-held sculptures, their movements trigger audio recordings of interviews with the friends and acquaintances that inspired the sculptures. Stop motion animated video is projected at the scale of a smart phone screen, elucidating the narratives embroidered on Olenick's handcrafted dolls. Viewers are invited to get close to works and enter into these characters' psyches through exposed narratives. Viewers can participate by communicating with Selfie (@EmbroideryPoems) and @YrImaginaryDog on Twitter. Selected tweets will be embroidered on the sculptures.
Iviva Olenick is a Brooklyn-born and based artist focusing on the intersections of language, handcrafts and social media. She has a BA in French Literature and Psychology from Binghamton University/SUNY and an AAS in Textile/Surface Design from FIT. She is represented by Muriel Guepin Gallery in New York City. Olenick’s work is in numerous local, national and international collections, including the Schwartz Art Collection of the Harvard Business School.
