American Icons Gallery Show Recognises Classic Gaming Consoles

We live in an age of gaming gorgeousness. Gamers’ lives nowadays are filled with fancy normal mapping and illumination engines, powered by slickly encased hardware that outputs onto super-sharp screens. In short, there’s a lot of thought given to aesthetics in the present day. But, it hasn’t always been this way and an upcoming art show will showcase the uglier — yet vitally important — gaming hardware of yesteryear.

American Icons gathers select works by Massachusetts artist Jason Brockert, who’s done a series of hazy still-life renderings of the Atari 2600, the Commodore 64, the Nintendo Entertainment System and old-school cartridges. Another series of paintings also portray classic Star Wars action figures, with most painted in a quietly contemplative style.

This showing’s being put together by nerd culture collective I Am 8-Bit in their downtown LA gallery and will open to the public this Friday. Some of the paintings — which are affordable as far as fine art goes — will also be available as prints for those who can’t make the show. So, if you’re still mourning that Pitfall cartridge that your mum threw away way back when, you can hang up a nostalgic replica in your living room in memory of dear old Harry.

American Icons [I Am 8-Bit]