Dan Witz: Prisoners 2012-2013 at Lazarides Gallery

A solo exhibition by New York-based artist Dan Witz (USA, b. 1957) displaying paintings from both his Prisoner and Mosh Pit series. Dan Witz has been at the forefront of artists working on the street since the late 1970s. Combining the latest in digital reproduction with the old master's technique of illusionism, the artist's lifelike figures appear as if from nowhere on sign-posts, walls, windows and manhole grates across the world. Painting and layering over digital photographs, each image is designed to surprise the viewer, taking them aback from the expected into an alarming state of disbelief. This 'shock factor' became integral to Witz after reading the work of French philosopher Guy Debord who maintained: 'the artist generates moments that jar the spectator out of passivity, making him the co-creator of a more creative-less passive life.' The breadth of Witz’s style and subject matter can be seen in the Mosh Pit series. These crowded multi-figure paintings depict the height of mosh pits at music concerts. Figures intertwine and climb over one another at different parts of the painting reflecting the energy of the Mosh Pit.