Reaching the milestone of our 100th resident since the initiative’s launch in October 2015, Lieberman’s residency coincides with the group exhibition Awaken, Metamagical Hands at Gazelli Art House in London. To commemorate this achievement, we will host a series of events throughout the Awaken, Metamagical Hands exhibition, running from 19 July to 21 September 2024.

Zach Lieberman is a renowned artist-educator based in New York who specialises in generative and interactive systems. Since 2004 he has been at the forefront of digital art, focussing on the lyrical potential of code. For Lieberman, creative coding is a poetic pursuit where tiny and delicate adjustments to numbers can yield unexpected and emotionally resonant visual and sensorial impact.

This exhibition focuses on the motif of the circle, presented across prints, an animation and an accompanying video giving an insight into the artist’s process. The circle as a symmetrical form might suggest perfection, but Lieberman destabilises this static solidity by infusing light and colour across the concentric shapes to dramatic and mesmerising effect. Surface planes seem to glow and pulse, and the effects of lighting at times suggest three dimensionality. Associations with the conical polished steel in mid-twentieth century posters for automobiles might be felt, alongside art historical connections to leading lights of American modernist painting such as Kenneth Noland (1924–2010) and Georgia O’Keefe (1887–1986) and the work of Swiss-born contemporary artist Ugo Rondinone (b.1964).

Lieberman’s artworks are the result of experiments with introducing elements of randomness into his coding, thereby revealing something playful and potentially transcendental within simple geometry. This dance between symmetry and asymmetry, order and disorder is in direct lineage with with the approaches of computer-art pioneers such as Harold Cohen (1928–2016) and Vera Molnár (1924–2023), as well as his contemporaries featuring in the Awaken, Metamagical Hands exhibition, such as Golan Levin (b.1972).

Lieberman’s coding is a daily practice – an iterative process pursued in a solitary fashion, which he nonetheless chooses to share the aesthetic results of regularly and widely. In a daily ‘diary’ he posts his images and animations on social media, an act infused with generosity and the spirit of shared connection.

Zach Lieberman’s residency and exhibition at Gazelli Art House mark a significant milestone for GAZELL.iO, showcasing his pioneering Circle Stripe series and exploring the poetic potential of creative coding amidst a rich artistic lineage.