OHT Gallery Boston

Previous Exhibits

Oliver Warden

No Man's Land

May 2 - 31, 2008
Reception: Friday, May 2, 5:30-7:30pm

O·H+T Gallery is pleased to present No Man's Land. This exhibition of digital prints and paintings by Oliver Warden represents Warden's response to the Iraq war.

Appropriated from the popular, action video game Counter-Strike, the images found in Warden's prints explore what is known in film as the liminal phase. This is the pivotal moment in a narrative where the protagonist (the player) is caught between two states of mind and is forced to evaluate his/her next move. "Like a doorway between two rooms... the moment before the epiphany, before the breakthrough, he has all options open to him." Warden sees this as the point where a combatant can deviate from a predetermined, linear path to delve into the unknown.

The prints in Warden's No Man's Land series (see Rush Garage right) depict sites in the game's landscape (dark hallways, unopened doors, and broken walls) where teams of terrorists and counter-terrorists battle for the advantage. Warden manipulates and simplifies each image to create a neutral space, frozen in time. The absence of active fighting and the Zen-like peace of these altered screenshots allow the viewer to reflect on the moral ambiguity of the moment, while exploring his/her own emotional and psychological responses to an interactive game that simulates warfare.

Each of the three paintings included in the show illustrates a key moment surrounding Warden's liminal phase. These hot, colorful works (Launch, Detonation and Aftermath) are a foil to the darkly introspective prints, as they illustrate the intensity of the decision making process and remind us that all decisions have consequences.

Perhaps Warden is challenging the "it's only a game" philosophy to suggest that insights attained while playing games like Counter Strike, are relevant in our post-9/11 world.

Oliver Warden is a Brooklyn artist whose online persona is ROBOTBIGFOOT (www.robotbigfoot.com). He works in a variety of media including printmaking, painting and film. He is currently directing a full-length film entitled THE WIND. Warden has graduate degree from NYU and an undergraduate degree from The School of Visual Arts in NYC. He has exhibited his work at Aqua Art Miami, the Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY, and White Columns, New York, NY. This is his first solo exhibition at O·H+T.