Dig­i­tal Paint to Dig­i­tal Pho­tog­ra­phy: The Long Reach of Ab­stract Ex­pres­sion­ism

Symposium:

• ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art

• The Big Bang of Electronic Art: Merging Abstraction and Representation in the Age of Digital Imaging

• Dig­i­tal Paint to Dig­i­tal Pho­tog­ra­phy: The Long Reach of Ab­stract Ex­pres­sion­ism

• Cynthia Beth Rubin

Venue(s):

• Sabanci Center, Istanbul, Turkey

• Panel: The Big Bang of Electronic Art: Merging Abstraction and Representation in the Age of Digital Imaging

  Pas­sion­ate ex­per­i­ments in the in­ter­ac­tion of color gave rise to the Ab­stract Ex­pres­sion­ist move­ment of the 1960s, in which spa­tial am­bi­gu­ity ruled above all else.  This move­ment still in­forms my own work.  I began my ca­reer as an ab­stract or nearly ab­stract painter, then moved into com­puter imag­ing in the mid-1980s, and grew with the tech­nol­ogy of the medium.  My im­agery has shifted from nearly ab­stract, with only the slight­est ref­er­ence to the sources of the forms in na­ture, to the in­te­gra­tion of pho­to­graphic el­e­ments, re­sult­ing in clearly rep­re­sen­ta­tional work.  As the tech­nol­ogy has evolved to make easy the facile ma­nip­u­la­tions of pho­to­graphic im­agery, my in­ter­est has grown to in­clude a re­turn to the un­seen, be it in ab­stract form or in mi­cro­scopic el­e­ments.  I still crave Hans Hoff­man’s “re­la­tions of re­la­tions”, or the in­ter­ac­tion of clus­ters of el­e­ments through color in­ter­ac­tion. This is so per­va­sive in my think­ing that noth­ing can purge it from my vi­sual vo­cab­u­lary, even when I move into un­charted ter­ri­to­ries of mean­ing.

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• Full text (PDF) p. 2077-2080

Category:

• Panel