Little Island/Gut Punch, 2022

Urethane paint on high-density foam
© Aria Dean; courtesy the artist and Greene Naftali, New York. Photo by Zeshan Ahmed.

Little Island/Gut Punch, by the American artist Aria Dean, is painted chroma key green—the same color used for green screen, the technique of filming a scene against a monochromatic green backdrop and then, in postproduction, using a filter to replace the green with different footage. Formally, it is a simple, erect rectangular solid, roughly the size of the artist’s body—but one that appears to have been struck forcefully in its middle so that it is beginning to collapse in on itself (hence, the “gut punch”). Little Island/Gut Punch was created through several digital processes, including collision simulation and 3D modeling; ultimately, outsourced fabrication made it material.