Le Grande Bayou | Houston | 2016 Print

I’m a Digital Transformer, converting images on my computer from both family pictures, landscapes and images self-generated using Powerpoint® or other off the shelf programs. My work is focused on identifying tensions and opportunities to discover images or messages hidden in the original work or image. Mostly I start looking for tensions and contrasts in form or color or patterns. Some are related to nature, some to people or objects, but many are geometric identities striving to be created and discovered. I am fascinated by the Pointillists, but where they used their brush, I use electronic pixels. I admire Mondrian, Van Doesburg and also the Fauvists, Russian Suprematists and Constructivists. I seek abstraction, simplification and powerful colors. Sometimes the image is asking for the exact opposite: complexity, balanced tones and a more diffuse treatment. Some images want to be in color, others drive to Black and White. My ‘style’ is as varied as the images I use or create. Luckily, with technology, I have been able to explore various areas with different degrees of success and impact. I take an image and pixelate, crystalize, invert colors, distort, crop, invert, paste, and seek to select details to blow up and explore different avenues of digital transformation. Since some are born from photos, others from my own digital compositions, the seeds of diversity are everywhere. On top of this, most of my images have many different versions as technology allows one the liberty of free exploration based on a previous image without starting over from scratch. I don’t see myself as a painter, photographer or traditional ‘artist’; I couldn’t hold a paintbrush in my arthritic fingers if I tried. Thus, I am a Digital Transformer using only a keyboard, mouse, my eyes, brain and technology to explore and innovate with images to try to give the world a vision that may stimulate it, promote reflection and produce delight and engagement. If you ask me “What does this piece mean?”, I would have to say “What does it mean to you?”. To me it is always another exploration. In this, I am just a Student.