Composition 252 is a painting by Terry Reynoldson which was uploaded on April 27th, 2014.
Composition 252
I created these images using a tablet and several of the many digital painting programs that are available for them. The geometric and non-objective... more
Title
Composition 252
Artist
Terry Reynoldson
Medium
Painting - Tablet Art
Description
I created these images using a tablet and several of the many digital painting programs that are available for them. The geometric and non-objective shapes recall artworks by early abstract painters such as Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and Theo Van Doesburg. These fathers of modern abstraction were active in the early 20th century and initiated such movements as Suprematism, Neo Plasticism and De Stijl.
Although these images live comfortably alongside traditional abstract and non-objective artworks, they are distinctly "post-modern" in the sense that they were created on a tablet using readily-available painting and drawing apps. They now exist as digital information waiting to be printed using commercial methods such as Gicl�e or IRIS printing. Put another way, there is NO "authentic original" other than the digital file, which MUST be printed before the work is complete. In this sense, the work can be 'completed' many times, each instance having an equal right to be called 'an authentic original' (provided the digital file remains unaltered). It's similar, perhaps, to an art installation or performance art wherein a work may be installed or performed multiple times in different contexts without losing its potency.
If I were now to recreate these images by hand with paint on canvas or panel (the preferred method of traditionalists), those works would then become COPIES of the original digital creations. This is an inversion of the expected dynamic in which a hand-painted original always PRECEDES a digital copy, and NOT the other way around. I believe this might be one of the few, if not the only way to detach a digital painting from the debased reputation of digital reproductions. I'm also quite convinced that the ease, portability and flexibility of tablet / iPad art will attract many more artists to this process in the future. It's unlikely that artists will ever give up their brushes (nothing beats the tactile experience of putting paint on a surface with a hairy stick), but sketchbooks might become a thing of the past.
Uploaded
April 27th, 2014
