People Matter Art Show by Nic*Rad, Featuring 99 Portraits of Internet & Media Personalities

photos by Scott Beale

Last night we stopped by the Rare Gallery in Chelsea to check out the “People Matter” art show by Nic*Rad, an 18 month project where he painted 99 portraits of internet and media personalities, including several of our friends. On April 29th there will be a closing party where Nic will be giving away all of the portraits he has made.

Rad created PeopleMatter in response to the shifting structure of the media industry. The subjects were selected from RSS Feeds, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and FourSquare to get a sense of their social habits and the spheres they occupy. Rad’s depictions range from faithfulness to distortion and abstraction based on each person’s media presence and perceived personality traits.

Last night’s event was organized by Julia Kaganskiy as part of her monthly Arts, Culture and Technology meetup. Here’s another write-up on the show by Terregalia.