STATION is delighted to present Michael Staniak's fifth solo exhibition with the gallery, Seeing is Believing. The title of this exhibition refers to the proverb which accepts truth as a value. This commonly held conviction—that seeing is believing—is becoming less reliable through the proliferation of new technologies. The recent developments of Artificial Intelligence (AI) expose the naivety in our judgements. AI, once an inaccessible prototype riddled with errors, has now become a ubiquitous technology that rivals human output. Michael Staniak's practice is concerned with the impact of new technologies on traditional methods of creating art. He explores the changing dynamics of images and materiality as influenced by digital media, provoking the tension between viewing content on a screen versus how they appear in person. Seeing is Believing is a continuation of Staniak's investigation of material, technique, and form.
This series of bright and iridescent, shifting textural paintings disorientate the viewer. These paintings feature unpredictable movement, creating the illusion of depth and undulating compositions that are seemingly flattened by the mirage of a screen. Furthering his process-based practice, Staniak incorporates sound and video into this investigation. Through a combination of hand and digital manipulation, he creates antiquated signals which test the idea of AI's immateriality. Seeing is Believing confronts the perception of reality in the digital age, questioning the reliability of what and how we see.
Michael Staniak's practice concerns the changing dynamics of creative processes in light of the proliferation of social and digital media. His paintings and sculptures explore the relationship between traditional methods and new technologies. Process is as much a focus of his work as out- come. Through unique applications of colour and manipulation of mediums, Staniak deliberately disrupts the visual cues that help distinguish digital and traditional image production. His works often utilise textures with a trompe-l'œil effect that manipulate the viewer's depth perception. The resulting hypnotic surfaces act as a visual portal to a post-digital world, one in which we interact both physically and virtually, and reflect on the implications of such an existence.
Established in Melbourne in 2011, with a second space opened in Sydney in 2019, STATION is dedicated to presenting an engaging, conceptually-driven exhibition program, with the aim of fostering rigorous, critically-engaged contemporary art practices. STATION represents a broad stable of established and emerging Australian and international artists. We are committed to bringing Australian contemporary art practices to international audiences and presenting opportunities for our artists to be positioned within a broader global dialogue.
