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Digital Art
Digital Art
2008-2009
These are the natural progression of my drawings from the Moleskin Drawings, albeit with far more careful planning and interrogation of the subject.
About the use of computers:
Where does the line between personal creation and digital handholding start and finish? Does it ever start or stop? Like much of my work, I am concerned here with process, rejoicing in the changes that the computer makes and the freedom that it affords in allowing me to blow small intimate drawings up to public proportions. The actual drawings must sit alongside the digital art (at least when on exhibition) to demonstrate the jump from pen and paper to ink-jet printer. This is also essential to demonstrate the ‘artist’ and not just a ghost in the machine. These are intentional ‘re’-creations.
About the series:
There are 4 series: Utopia, Heart, Symbol, and Outlook. These are explained on a dedicated page. There are also a number of one-offs that do not fit into a series.
About the media:
The original drawings were drawn with a minutely tipped pen (0.18 & 0.25 mm) on Fabriano or acid-free Moleskin journal paper. The Large prints are be printed on high-quality, acid-free paper for maximum archival properties. They will be made in a limited run. These will be sealed (preferably with an embosser) and signed.
Symbol
Ironically, these are not traditional symbols (a loaded image which has preconceived meanings). Rather these works combine ideas and symbols together to create a new image, very often simple in execution, that aims to create a symbolic identity all it’s own.
The exercise, in fact, is to subvert the notion of symbols with something that aims, self-knowingly, to pass itself off as a symbol.
Heart
I am fascinated by symbols and archetypes. Heart tries to balance the overused, gaudy heart symbol with ideas and images that do not belong together.
There are elements of tension and emotions pulling in opposite directions. They seek to convey notions of love and relationships in the modern world that are complex and very often opposed.
Outlook
I love playing with one’s sense of reality.
These pieces force the viewer into both ‘looking in’ and ‘looking out’ at once. On the one hand they are looking at an image hanging on the wall. On the other, the image is forcing them to see outside and through the wall on which it hangs.
The pieces become a mirror of reality (albeit a fantastical one).
Utopia
The modern city is sprawling, overpowering and suffocating. It also, paradoxically, holds the keys to the dreams of millions. It is a place of love and loss; it is a place of getting lost and being found; it is beautiful and ugly.
The works that comprise Utopia all feature an uneasy perspective, vibrant colours and a sense of precision.
Created as ideals, the cities in Utopia float. They are not grounded, not bound to the ground and thus the failings of the Modern City. They are ethereal and, most importantly, usually deserted. Sometimes the ‘every-face’ I use in my paintings will make an appearance � but they are everyone and no one at once. They also often feature buildings that extend through the ground creating a double image and a double meaning.
One-offs
Burj
Drawn from a balcony over-looking the Burj, this drawing seeks to find solace.
I was on a trip to Dubai which had, the day I drew this, fallen apart. The trip was supposed to rejuvenate me and give me purpose. Instead it did neither. I was sitting outside, broken, when the colossal Burj struck me as the perfect symbol of mixed messages.
Self-portrait
Looking directly at the viewer, tears falling from the eyes, the figure is pleading, stoic and frozen.
This is a critique on modern society. It shows the personal frustration and angst that we all try so hard to hide. The face, looking out at society (those viewing it), seeks to create a bond, a connection. Anything.
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