USER NETWORK

Vlada Benedetti, Dmitri Obergfell, Chloe Wilwerding

Lane Meyer Projects is pleased to present User Network, a three-person exhibition featuring artworks by Vlada Benedetti, Dmitri Obergfell, and Chloe Wilwerding.

November 10, 2023 - January 7, 2024

Opening Reception: November 10, 2023, 8pm - Late

For Immediate Release:

Lane Meyer Projects is proud to announce User Network, a group exhibition featuring works by Colorado-based artists Vlada Benedetti, Dmitri Obergfell, and Chloe Wilwerding. Working in disparate studio practices in different cities around the state, User Network features works that were created in collaboration with, aided by, or influenced by machines and/or technological processes. 

In the spirit of true collaboration, Vlada Benedetti (Colorado Springs, CO) shares authorship and content creation in their “unnatural history” large scale painting. Once starkly opposed to AI-generated images, Benedetti now takes pleasure in using online AI sources as a tool to produce idealized depictions of the artist and their work. Seeded with Benedetti’s dark and unsettling original works inspired by nature, machine-learning tirelessly produces endless variations of these works, much to the artist's bemusement. From these permutations, Benedetti collects their favorites to then replicate with acrylic on canvas. From the artist’s mind, to computer processing, to the artist’s hands, the final product is more or less a photo backdrop for the artist to be photographed in front of.

Dmitri Obergfell (Denver, CO) splits his time between studio and the lab. As the Operations Manager of DU’s Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science’s Innovation Lab, Obergfell has access to various machines in his toolkit, including CNC Routers, 3D printers, laser engravers, and more. For User Network, Obergfell will show 3D printed prototypes made in the lab, presented atop acrylic mirrored wall sconces. An ode to the process of manufacturing, these prototypes, which include nods to Greco-Roman sculpture, Xenomorphs à la H.R. Giger, and the artist’s personal historical narrative, could potentially lead to larger scale fabrication in future iterations.

Ruminating on our collective removal from nature, Chloe Wilwerding (Steamboat Springs, CO) uses her work to, “think about how we think about nature.” For User Network, Wilwerding will present stretched works on canvas and found fabric, sometimes with digitally manipulated and printed images of plants, leaves, clouds, and wooded scenes. Blending humor into a playfully cynical view of humanity’s increasing reliance on technology and resultant distance from nature, she uses digital embroidery and the motif of merit badges to frame a conversation surrounding the conquest of the land and its resources. As climate change continues to alter our surroundings, Wilwerding continues to create layered compositions that are at once nature-based and artificial.

From eager collaborator to cautious end user, User Network features artists utilizing technology in varying degrees to achieve their artistic goals. Despite the looming threat of exponentially expanding capabilities and applications of artificial intelligence and automation, it still takes a human prompter to set the G-code in motion. For artists Vlada Benedetti, Dmitri Obergfell, and Chloe Wilwerding, the scope of their practices reaches deep within and far beyond the tools at their disposal.

Written by Marsha Mack

All purchase inquiries to: lanemeyerprojects@gmail.com

Born and raised in Colorado, Vlada Benedetti is a multi-media artist whose work centers on hidden nature. Having graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and lived and worked in the Northeast for 17 years, Vlada returned to Colorado to further research the Rockies a part of an ongoing project, SAFARINON. Vlada has lived in Paris, Vienna, and Reykjavik as a working artist and has shown work in both solo and group exhibitions in US and European galleries and museums.

Dmitri Obergfell was born in 1986, and is based in Denver. Holds a BFA in Photography and Video Art. Works have been exhibited in galleries, art fairs, and museums across the U.S., Mexico, and Europe.

Chloe Wilwerding (she/her) holds her MFA in Printmaking from Rhode Island School of Design (2019) and her BA in Political Science and Studio Art from Middlebury College (2015). She has been awarded residencies at Vermont Studio Center and Taleamor Park and scholarships from Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists’ Residency and Anderson Ranch Art Center. She teaches online for Rhode Island School of Design’s Continuing Education program and has worked as an adjunct faculty member for Montserrat College of Art. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include A Way In at the Curfman Gallery at Colorado State University, Nature Lover at Southern Vermont Arts Center, and The Landscapes Between Us at Frame 301 Gallery at Montserrat College of Art.

All photos taken by Erynn McConnell