ART THIS WEEK: NICOLAS SASSOON AND RICK SILVA, KITO TOSETTI, AND VAG YAS’ PARTY
The Vancouver Sun, The Vancouver Sun
Nicolas Sassoon and Rick Silva: Signals
GIFs wizard Nicolas Sassoon has projected his imagery at Vancouver Art Gallery and on the exteriors of Burrard Arts Foundation and Drake Hotel in Toronto, to mention just a few locales. Calgary’s Rick Silva, now based in Oregon, often takes a laptop into the wild and creates animations in response to the immediate terrain. He juxtaposes digitalism and nature to mesmerizing effect, such as his flying birds series. One critic calls Silva “a trailblazer of new approaches for representing nature.” Together, Sassoon and Silva take on the ocean for the exhibition Signals, churning sea water into digital waves — the monumental projection engulfing the viewer within the gallery space. An ocean view infused with a foreign substance, it’s an overwhelming science-fiction setting, suggesting an unnatural presence within nature.