The Door

Auriea Harvey’s practice exists in and between the real and virtual and The Unanswered Question situates both realms of existence on the same plane not as simulacrum, but as a suspension of disbelief. Scale plays an important role within the collapse of real and virtual as the artist manifests her digital compositions as an expansive scrollable landscape. Each work is a collage of polygonal models, derived from 3D scans and arranged into scenes using “kitbashing”, a technique from the practice of model-making that forms all parts into a whole and celebrates the simple lighting and highlights of each figure’s digital nature. This process offers the artist the opportunity to interject her personal sculptures into classical narratives.

All murals are sold as a digital image where the viewer can scroll, zoom, and uncover the theatrical compositions in detail. Collected works can be viewed online as a Gigapixel zoomable image as well as printed at resolutions up to 12ft/3.6m in height.

The Door emulates a frescoed space or immersive landscape of Harvey’s scans built from scanned Renaissance grotesques, a staircase from the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, and the Tomb of Gregory XIII in St. Peter's. The decorative borders and wall textures are made up of generated noise and scans of marble textures around St. Peter’s square.