Image: Arthur Ross Gallery, University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
The Penn Art Collection has organized a conversation at Amy Gutmann Hall on Friday, October 9, from 5 to 7 pm, exploring drone vision technology, warfare and contemporary painting.
The discussion will celebrate the installation of Lesia Khomenko’s contemporary painting ‘A Frame from Video Footage of a Kamikaze Drone at the Tree Line’ (2025) in the first-floor lobby of Amy Gutmann Hall at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Inaugural Faculty Director of the Arthur Ross Gallery and the James and Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor of History of Art in the School of Arts & Sciences, will moderate, while Vijay Kumar, Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering, will give introductory remarks. A reception will follow the discussion.
The event will focus on the rise of drone technology and warfare, their impact on vision and perception, and the effects of the war in Ukraine on artistic production in Ukraine and among Ukrainian artists in the diaspora.
Khomenko is a multidisciplinary artist who relocated from Kyiv to New York City after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Daniilidis is a Penn Engineering professor whose research interests are in computer vision and robotic perception. Khomenko’s work draws on digital images and military footage of the conflict sourced online, transforming that material through the language of paint and abstraction.
