The New Painter: Artist Talk with Tra Bouscaren

The New Painter: Artist Talk with Tra Bouscaren

Thursday, 20 February 2025

6.30 pm - 8:00 pm

Free admission, complimentary drinks (21+)

161 Glass St., Dallas, TX

Join us in discussing artist Tra Bouscaren’s work at the intersection of waste culture and digital media. The artist will talk about his creative practice. Following his talk, Bouscaren will participate in a Q&A.

About Tra Bouscaren

Tra Bouscaren serves as an Assistant Professor and Director of the eXMeLab (Expanded Media Lab) in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. He earned a BA in Philosophy from Yale University, an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, and is ABD towards a PhD in Media Study at SUNY Buffalo. Bouscaren’s work has been featured at the Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh), Vittorio Manalese (Berlin), the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, among many other venues.

Bousaren is a neo-cave painter. Assembling e-waste, neon, billboards, and salvage from demolition sites, his installations critique American spectacle at the intersection of waste culture and the surveillance state. From the ceiling down, he constructs storms of trash into which he weaves surveillance equipment. Live surveillance video feeds are algorithmically combined with test patterns and re-deployed through a multichannel array, submerging the installation in projection. By illuminating the installation with the calibrated image of the spectator, the work recalibrates the viewer in relation to the salvaged substrate upon which it is projected.

About The New Painter

The New Painter (TNP) is a project supporting research in digitally-informed practices in painting. TNP promotes fluidity between digital and material practices through creative research, visiting scholars, and workshops. With support from a UT Dallas HEARTS grant, The New Painter champions ongoing discourse in the field of new media painting. Drawing on the history of painting as an ever-evolving discourse, along with the history of images themselves, TNP advances conceptual, technical, and material fluency in new media painting.

Image credit: 2 SPACE. Courtsey of the artist.

Museum Policies

• No food or drink, please | No se permite comida ni bebida
• Photography permitted, but no flash | Solo fotografía sin flash
• Please refrain from touching the art | No tocar el arte
• This is a weapon-free zone | Zona libre de armas

By registering for admission, I give permission for the Dallas Contemporary to use my photograph and other media such as film and quotations on Dallas Contemporary promotional material and publications for which it may be suitable.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Dallas Contemporary, 161 Glass Street, Dallas, United States