Opening January 30, 2010
Electric Paint
January 30 – March 28, 2010
With advances in personal computing and increasingly sophisticated software, a new breed of artist has emerged who is creating dynamic forms of visual expression. Thanks to computers, advanced software and the power of the Internet, these artists are able to share their work and ideas with their peers as well as with varied audiences around the world in mere seconds. They are exploring the full visual possibilities of cyberspace. Yet the work of these pioneering artists is virtually unknown to most of us.
Electric Paint: The Computer as 21st Century Canvas, an exhibition organized by Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, WI, brings together 70 works by 22 international artists to shed light on the phenomenon of computer- generated art found on web pages, galleries, and virtual museums worldwide. Their work comprises altered photographs, free-hand painting with a mouse or graphics tablet, and fractals derived from the input of mathematical formulas resulting in fantastical portraits and landscapes that alter our sense of reality. The exhibition also includes digital video and paintings.
A digital artist's tools and studio look nothing like the traditional artist's studio with its brushes, palettes, canvases, paper, paint tubes, and easels scattered about. Instead, they work with myriad software programs to sketch and paint images on their computer screen or introduce digital photographs into their work, using electrons to bend, cut, paste, and fold images. Another technology involves using mathematical formulas to create fractals. In nature, a fractal is a complex, detailed geometric pattern repeated at ever-decreasing sizes. By changing the formula the artist creates an entirely new artwork.
Artists included in Electric Paint hail from Austria, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, Wales, and the United States. This wide- ranging geographic and cultural array ensures diversity in style, subject matter, and technique yet also reveals the internationality of the passion and knowledge — both artistic and technological — that digital artists bring to this burgeoning art movement that is rapidly changing the landscape of contemporary art.
