Pauline van de Ven

Pauline van de Ven

Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

About Pauline van de Ven

I am a digital painter exploring the new medium of vector. ---------------------------------------------- My painting developes in cycles from figurative to abstract and back to figurative. They are two poles of a magnet. Critics don’t like this but Picasso did it too so it can’t be totally wrong. This is where the similarity ends for He has one billion followers and I… well. Also He concentrates on the outside and the body and I on the inside and the soul. To me a painting is the reflection of a human soul and only if the soul is deep enough the painting will be deep enough. And you see what if depth of soul would turn out to be inversely related to number of followers of a living artist. ----------------------------------------------------------------- What interests me in vector painting is that vector is a balanced cooperation between the artist and the computer. Lines forms and colors are made by hand and behind the screen the computer ties them all to mathematical formulas known as Bezier curves. This gives them more simplicity more contrast and a higher resolution than can be achieved by hand. Colors are pure monochromes or very fine computer-calculated gradients. While there is hardly any art in vector yet, its amazing property of fixed resolution makes it popular in advertising. ----------------------------------------------------------------- At first I rejected the bold appearance of the medium. ‘Ceci est un oeuf’ (2015) expresses my dislike. The hard lines monochrome colors and perfect gradients seemed to limit the emotional palette to messages of pure happiness and joy famous from Matisse’s cut-outs or the brutal surrealistics of Daly. While I am more attracted to the vulnerability of the Vuillards and the soft nuance of the Bonnards the Sisleys and De Staels and the silent here-and-nows of the Vermeers and de Hooghs and the Steens and the introvert abstracts of the Schoonhovens and Van der Lecks - in short there is a lot that I am much more attracted to. Still, vector is the only cooperation between the artist and the computer that offers a new language of form while leaving the artist in charge. To the left we have digital raster painting where the artist is fully in charge but forms are in no way different from a traditional painting whatever you do with them. To the right there is fractal painting which offers substantial renewal but the computer takes the lead. These images become impersonal and repetitive and in my view emotionally void. Compared to our own soul the soul of a machine is a very flimsy thing. ----------------------------------------------------------------- I have been trying to find ways to give vector some of the soft nuance and broader range of expression of raster. This seemed to work if I restrained colors to a bare minimum of black-and-white gradients and one monochrome color. Now with this clair obscur at last I am happy with vector - especially with the last works: Waiting, Diner, Thoughts, Rainy day, Woman. For as long as I'm happy with any development which is usually not very long. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fortunately the joy is in the making not the selling. I am grateful for the recognition of three honors from the Museum of Computer Art (MOCA) and a Lorenzo award for digital painting at the Florence Biennale in 2015. Having met with misconception and accidental humiliation I have made a strong effort to promote the understanding of digital painting. Most importantly it is necessary to explain that for all honest digital art what you hang on the wall is and can only be, a print. There is a common misunderstanding that a print cannot be unique. It certainly can. ‘Digital Painting, explained and illustrated’ (2013-18) is now in the Public Domain and can be found at www.digitalpainting.be It is good to see that expertise is growing and digital painting is slowly maturing. I have no doubt that somewhere in the near future its strong buds will burst and bloom. -------------------------------------------------------------- July 2018

Education:

Self-taught. Before I switched to the computer in 2004 I worked in watercolor linocut and etching ground on glass. My first painting computer was a Palm TX. It had a tiny painting program ‘Notepad’ with three brush-tips, no redo button and only one color, black. I never touched a real brush again. Over the years I happily experimented with a great number of painting programs using Apple desktop and iPad.

Events:

-Lorenzo award for digital painting at the Florence Biennale in 2015
-Annual competition award for digital painting, Museum of Computer Art MOCA NY in 2014
- Annual competition award for digital painting, Museum of Computer Art MOCA NY in 2015.
- Halewijn Literary oeuvre award in 2015.

Exhibitions:

-2018 November Amsterdam, Open Atelierdagen
-2016 March 1-15 , Amsterdam, Scheltema
-2015 October 7 - 25, Florence Biennale
-2014 January 2015-April 2015 Gallery K16, Amsterdam
-2012 November 27 - December 8, Onishi Galery, New York, USA
-2011 September 10-25, Saatchi-Camaver Kunsthaus, Contemporary art exhibition, Desio Milan, Italy.
-2009 March 14-28, Opera Gallery, 'Dutch contemporary artists', Budapest.
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/dealers_galleries/Gallery
-2007 Waanders, Zwolle prentkunst

Collections:
Letterkundig museum Den Haag (NL); private collections in Arlington(USA), Stanford (UK), Tokio, London, Rotterdam, Moscow, Budapest, Vergnolles (Fr.)