Analog vs Digital

Background

One of the core themes in my creative practice is around the relationship between the Analog and the Digital. And similar to how i represent the intersection of Art vs Design, i see the relationship between these two subjects also as a push/pull, as Analog vs Digital.

The mixing of the analog and the digital, the real world and the online world, reflects what is happening to us as humans. For me it is probably the most dominant cultural influences of modern life. It is a thematic driver of my work, but also it is reflects the way my work is produced. I like the simplicity of this comparison.

Process

The biggest question for me that i like to lead with, is what does painting mean right now? I am constantly looking to explore that topic. The most important elements in this question, is to look directly at the relationship between analog and digital painting. This is the frontier of painting in my opinion and is most likely what will guide where painting goes in the future.

The second question that motivates my goals is : What can make now that we couldn’t make 2 years ago, 5 years ago etc. Is there something that is distinctly of this time, that represents this modern moment. And again, i believe that most interesting modern ways of seeing will come from technology.

In my artwork I am not drawn to executing work completely in new technologies, as influence and inspiration yes - but strongly rooted in the established mediums. There is fascinating developments in emerging art technologies for sure, but I like to place greater restrictions on my own practice and try to remain hyper focused within the Boundaries of Painting. My design work more directly seeks out new technology frontiers where I am adopting new developments readily as part of the practice.

I like to keep the ambitions of my practice simple; my work is about exploring these “versus” ; Art vs Design, Analog vs Digital, Paint vs Pixels.

Analog to digital

Part 1 : Analog Origins

Core to my process is about taking something from the real world (analog) and transitioning it to the digital. Usually my subject is people, aka: figurative work. Visually I am most interested in people, but also as described above, a core thematic driver of my work is how humans are becoming a hybrid of Analog and Digital.

The majority of of my work begins with a record of a human (photo maybe). I also have an ongoing still life series, which begin with analog subjects - before converting them into the digital realm.

Part 2: The Digital Composite

Once i have my subject, I use photoshop and other related tools to deconstruct and manipulate the image. This process of deconstructing the subject is a direct parallel for how we exist in the modern world - the hybrid of analog vs digital. Humans obviously live in the physical space but more and more of our identity is crossing over into the digital. It’s speaks very directly to the metamorphosis of real world vs online world. In this case the artistic action that is taking place, is driven from a conceptual motivator. In other words, the theme Analog vs Digital is not just the overall motivation for the work, but also describes how the aesthetic language of the work is created.

From there I use different digital processes to damage and manipulate the subject - putting it through a kind of digital ringer where the image gets pushed and pulled in all sorts of ways. As part of this process i relinquish a lot of control to the machine. There is a back and forth balancing act on how much the human controls the outcome and how much the machine controls it. With different types of programmes you can allow the computer to take a certain amount of creative control. That dynamic is usually guided by my own taste, my own subjective aesthetic sensibilities - the human instinct as it where. Practically speaking I am using the computer to generate a lot of the interesting visual forms and dynamics, my human input is often to choose something that looks visually appealing. The image i settle on is usually triggered by an emotional reaction. It is informed in some ways by very basic attraction to form and shape, plus some component of taste and aesthetic preference.

Part 3 : The Digital Painting

So now that I have the digital composite as the base for the work, I begin to paint digitally. The Composite is like a collage that informs the painting. I use a collection of digital painting brushes, knives, layers etc

The goal here is to challenge the expectation of what a digital painting can be. A question that i often ask myself is - Can this digital painting be as visually interesting as if I painted in on canvas? I apply a huge amount of the analog skills for oil painting and try to create something as equally if not more compelling digitally.

Digital painting is imitating analog painting. The tools that are developed are skeuomorphic. We can make a digital brushstroke mix like oil, we can apply textures to look like canvas or paper. we can applie filters to imitate graphite or watercolour. I enjoy that dynamic and find it interesting to blur those lines. I think there is a lot to be explored in this coming together of analog/digital and believe there is a lot of valuable artwork to be created there. I will be working in this spectrum for a while, but I am also on the lookout for fundamental developments in digital painting that go beyond the skeuomorphic and possibly establish a native digital visual language. I don’t know what that will be nor am I attempting to establish it. I will be working here, within the Boundaries of Painting - as i think it is such a rich and fertile ground for creative output for a while to come.

Optional Part 4 : Back to Analog

Once I am happy with the digital composite and painting, the next step is to apply oil on canvas. The technical challenge is to capture as much of the interesting digital material in analog form. I have always been drawn to the more painterly approach and it is in that fashion that i try to recreate some of the native digital characteristics. There is an interesting challenge in applying digitally native features and capturing in oil paint.

The nature of this back and forth relationship from analog to digital, and back to analog is interesting and necessary process to be able to create imagery like i do, but more than that it also echos the nature of our modern world, the ever merging identities and what it feels like to be a hybrid of Analog and digital.