smoke the moon is thrilled to present BIRDVISION, a solo show of Toronto-based artist Luke van H in the casita gallery. Luke van H will present a new suite of airbrushed acrylic works on panel. Please join us for an opening reception on September 27, from 6 – 8pm.

The work in BIRDVISION is an ode to the gaps in translation. Luke van H presents a body of work that is both contemplative and playful, with the distinct feeling that it was born out of an afternoon fantasy. The artist transforms stock images, screenshots of online videos, 3D models and other internet detritus to form images that are entirely new. These images, filtered through a love of gardening and built up in Photoshop, are animated by their own strange self-possession. The garden has come alive at night, and logic has flown by the wayside. 

Luke van H is a meticulous artist. They make acrylic airbrush paintings that transform digital images into the material plane through a form of mimicry. The paintings in BIRDVISION were produced through a series of diligent, sequential steps, using a digital drawing as a map. The imagery feels as if it was made by a digital tinkerer; simultaneously homemade and readymade.  Through this, the object rendered on the panel invariably becomes a distorted duplicate of its digital originator. The resulting paintings are highly saturated, full of clean lines and graphic softness. 

The artist is acutely interested in the deterioration of time and space through the sublimation of the digital into the physical. The paintings that emerge from this inquiry occupy a shifting space of surreality. Each painting possesses a fantasy of itself, and each one operates as a portal into a garden of more-than-earthly delights.