Digital_Analog Print

Analog-Digital Landascapes: In this series of works I have been developing parallel lines of thought and rendering. Guided by the notion of juxtaposing the seemingly opposite ideas of Analog and digital ( as understood in technological terms) I have come to find a very interesting dialog of pictorial elements of language, that, by contrast conveys quite unwittingly, the idea of the "contemporary landscape", landscape that is no longer exclusively "analog" (round, wild, natural, savage) but one that has been colonized by human intervention (technology) , a landscape interpenetrated by a new environment of life, that of the "data-sphere" . I propose that we inhabit a new landscape, and that we transform that landscape, morph it,code it and decode it, interlace what the landscape is with our notion of the landscape.... Photography. Photography's birth and the instant infatuation of the masses with it was perhaps the single most important event to ever had altered the course of Painting up to the late 18th century, although the history of optics reveals that as early as the 4th and 5th century Greek philosophers Euclid and Aristotle had already described the use of the pinhole camera, later to be known and used by artists as "The Camera Obscura" However, during the late 18th century painters found themselves facing a new dilemma and asking deep philosophical questions about their work : what is the point of realism? Why to paint a portrait when a camera can capture nature's reality so closely and so detailed? Now we know this sudden panic was unfounded and that there is much that figuration can give to painting, however out of that questioning came to life some of the most prolific, revolutionary and interesting Painters and Paintings of all times: Impressionism had been born, now Painters had something to offer that the mechanical procedures of the camera could not, impressions, human impressions. And from there the whole wave that was modern art as a result. I, as a Painter, have an infatuation with photography. The camera offers that window through which I can alter, manipulate and extend what my eye can see and how it sees it. Digital Photography expands that already large reach even further and digital manipulation of images through a host of software mediums gives the artist the possibility to dissect images to their inner most limits. However I am a Painter and photography is only an extension of my eye. The Digital. The way I approach the use of all these tools that technology is offering me somehow resembles the way in which late 18th century painters thought about the possibilities that laid bare before them with the advent of photography, like them, the question in my mind when I work on my paintings is : What is "the image" about in this day and age ? Contemporary cinema, advertising and other media have brought to our consciousness a great deal of refinement in terms of design and style, in an ever pervasive way. As a spectator and an artist I find myself along with my fellow human beings in this whirlpool of ever evolving aesthetics. My Paintings are not about copying photographs, or mimicking effects. I intend to meditate about the meaning of the image today, and incorporate what is important to me and to the image from the history of art. My experience with digital manipulation of images and CGI (graphics programming, I have worked producing digital effects for feature films) has given me some insight and interesting questions that inform my art : In a computer, how do you map an image from memory to the screen? Or what is an image when stored in memory ? All these questions (and sometimes their answers) contribute to the formation of an image as a Painting. Also the process of producing the painting has changed sometimes starting from an idea, or a question about the image, sometimes starting from a previous image viewed in a different way, altered, deformed, blended, filtered, etc. But then, the processes of digitally manipulating the image are purely a thinking process because when it comes to the Painting action, Painting takes on a life of it's own, there are accidents, imperfections, corrections, errors, miscalculations and all those things that makes us human and that make painting ... painting. Mauricio Villami

Print:Giclee on Canvas

Size:16 W x 12 H x 1.25 D in

Size with Frame:17.75 W x 13.75 H x 1.25 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.