GRAPHIC SERENDIPITY: Adam Lister, Gavin Lynch, and Jiri Mayer
16th January, 2025 – 8th February, 2025
GR gallery
255 Bowery
New York, NY, 10002
GR gallery proudly unveils Graphic Serendipity, an exhibition spotlighting the works of Adam Lister, Gavin Lynch, and Jiri Mayer. The title draws a thoughtful thread from the 1968 landmark show Cybernetic Serendipity in London, while anchoring itself in the unique visual language of three painters navigating the digital age.
Much like its predecessor examined the intersection of art and mechanical systems, this exhibition probes the ways digital aesthetics are reimagined through the tactile lens of contemporary painting.
Image courtesy of GR Gallery
What sets these works apart is their deliberate handcraftsmanship—each created with airbrush, acrylic, or collage on canvas. Even in person, theses works blur the line between the physical and the virtual, appearing eerily akin to computer-generated imagery. This deliberate ambiguity poses a provocative question: why would artists painstakingly replicate the visual syntax of digital tools by hand?
In an era where our perception is increasingly filtered through screens, Graphic Serendipity offers a striking meditation on how the digital is etched into our visual culture. The exhibition features 15 paintings that echo the aesthetics of pixelated glitches and low-resolution screens, yet defy expectations by embodying a new genre—Digital Code-scapes.
These works reconcile the human touch with the precision of digital design, forging a dialogue between the organic and the synthetic. Each artist contributes a distinct voice to this conversation. Lynch’s pieces shimmer with intricate, emotive details that stand in contrast to Lister’s minimalist, geometric compositions. Meanwhile, Mayer’s works are infused with nostalgia, reminding viewers of the simplicity found in early computer graphics, with playful nods to MS Paint.
acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 30 x 24 in.
Image courtesy of GR Gallery
© GR Gallery
Together, they create a kaleidoscope of digital memory, reframing familiar imagery from the 1990s and 2000s as painterly explorations of collective experience. By borrowing its title from Cybernetic Serendipity, GR gallery nods to a historical dialogue about the role of technology in art (Reichardt, 1968). However, this exhibition shifts the lens toward a new question: how does the digital sensibility of our time reshape the relationship between artist and audience?
© GR Gallery
For Lister, Lynch, and Mayer, the digital is not merely a theme but a shared language—an aesthetic of memory, technology, and cultural convergence. Their works transcend personal or geographic boundaries, evoking a shared nostalgia that hovers in the liminal space between the real and the virtual.
In Graphic Serendipity, GR gallery captures the pulse of a generation living at the crossroads of human creativity and technological evolution. It’s a portrait of the 2020s—a moment when the hand of the artist reaches into the pixelated ether to find something enduring, something undeniably human.
GRAPHIC SERENDIPITY: Adam Lister, Gavin Lynch, and Jiri Mayer opens on the 16th of January, 2025 until the 8th of February, 2025 at GR gallery, New York
©2025 GR Gallery
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