SEE // Watercolor Paintings of iPhone Screens

Ken Solomon, 2013, “My Apps,” Detail, Pencil and watercolor on paperboard
SEE // Watercolor Paintings of iPhone Screens
Molly O'Brien
We look at these screens every day—Google Maps, iTunes, Pandora, the purgatorial “loading”
spiral. Ken Solomon takes these screens and, by painting them in finely detailed watercolors,
lends them renewed meaning, as well as a narrative beyond the mere poking of buttons.
This is Running To Stand Still, Solomon’s exhibition at Josée Bienvenu Gallery, which takes its
name from the 1987 song by U2. Music features prominently in the Running installation, where
iPhone-sized images of digital songs form a chain of sonic history. The last word of each depicted
song title is the first word of the next: “Start Me Up” leads to “Up To No Good,” followed by “Good
Day Sunshine.” Running is meant to follow “the universally moving and self-deprecating journey
of a middle-aged white American man transitioning from vibrant, curious youth to midlife”; in other
words, what does it look like when one’s taste in music freezes in time?
Elsewhere there are other poignant moments. The Google Earth images of Newark container
fields in Looking Down From Above shows Solomon’s computer with the time at 12:22 and the
battery at 44%, and these numbers form the birthday of Solomon’s mother, who passed away
twelve years ago. By inserting these little details into his already detailed paintings, Solomon
turns mundane web-browsing into biography, memoir, and even eulogy.
Running To Stand Still is on view at Josée Bienvenu Gallery in NYC from April 18 to May 25.