"Dulce Bytes" exhibit catalog

Dulce

An Exhibit of Digital Art

Bytes

FEBRUARY 1–25, 2018 Kerr Arts and Cultural Center

Contents Meet the Artists

4

Thomas Athey 6 Charles Heppner 8 Leslie Kell

10

Chalda Maloff

12

Paul McGuire 14 Shirley Steele

16

Contacts 18

Digital Art and the Digital Artist

by Paul McGuire

In simplest terms, “digital art” is art that has some digital component, either in its creation or its presentation. The appeal of digital art is the emergence of compelling imagery from what has historically been considered a cold and soulless machine, the computer.

In Dulce Bytes, we see six perspectives on digital creativity. The featured artists all use digital tools and processes in creating their artwork, but their methods vary across a spectrum of tools and techniques.

Some of the artists make use of the computer’s ability to manipulate images at the finest level of detail, exerting absolute control over each bit and pixel of their artwork. Their methods can range from digital painting using virtual brushes and canvas, to digital collage and composition, assembling artwork from tributary images that have been cropped and transformed.

Other artists invert the control model, defining custom software algorithms or rules to compose images from line, shape, fill and photographic primitives. They rely on emergent behavior from repeated application of those algorithms to generate their artwork organically. This process comes to resemble a spiral of experiments, which can converge inward to a coherent finish, or diverge outward to ever more chaotic and discordant shapes and colors. Both endpoints can be equally valid to the artist.

Still other artists will use an approach that is a hybrid of these. But regardless of their process, and their degree of control, it is the artist who sets the stage, defines the context, and ultimately composes the final artwork. In digital art, as in its analog counterparts, the artist constantly asks, “Is it done?” and “Is it good?” and it is the artist, not the computer, who must answer those questions.

3

Thomas Athey’s creative process is loosely modeled on memetics, the cultural analogue of biological evolution. Using images from his personal photographic archive, Athey creates complex image inheritance scenarios, applies targeted mutations to highlight desirable attributes and enforces rigorous selection pressures in a survival-of-the-fittest workflow that ultimately determines which images are included in the finished collage.

In this context, these images can be viewed as unique, highly evolved organisms, subject to the same evolutionary forces as biological entities but free of the time constraints and vagaries of natural selection.

Charles Heppner is an artist currently living in Austin. Born in Chicago, he has a degree in Mathematics. He began his art career as a painter, however, his practice has grown to include photography and mixed media box constructions. His Prayer Rug works exhibited here are intricate photographic compositions composed in the digital darkroom using tree images as the basis. For Heppner, the works are prayers of gratitude for and about trees.

Leslie Kell

creates her artworks using an original technique in which her photographic images are digitally assembled into the patterns of her designs. As the photos are layered and manipulated, they interact to create the highlights, shadows, and contours of the new image they create. Her surreal environments are visual journeys that mingle and blur to push the bounds of vision and emerge into another reality. Kell’s artwork is printed on archival canvas and finished with three-dimensional enhanced framing to create a one-of-a-kind sculptural presentation.

4

Chalda Maloff creates digital paintings using a combination of freehand

electronic tablet drawing and her developed complement of digital techniques. She does not use photographic processes in her work. She employs art software to simulate and synthesize various aesthetic effects, producing outcomes that evoke emotion, sensuality, and spirituality.

Paul McGuire’s

artistic process is a fusion of art and mathematics.

Combining fractal algorithms with his own custom-developed computer software, his art recreates complexity as it is found in the natural world.

Unlike many computer-generated artworks, which are often hard and geometric, these images evoke many natural forms such as the path of lightning through a storm or the flow of water as it shapes a hillside. His piece breath was a winning entry in the 2017 Austin Art Boards competition, and will be featured on billboards in and around Austin over the next 1218 months.

Shirley Steele’s work explores the role that art can play in understanding

technology and its role in our lives. In a recent installation, called CLOUD STORAGE: MEMES & GRAPHEMES, she uses both computer code that she writes herself and traditional art media to investigate systems of written language, a technology that is still evolving. Captured in a transparent hanging cloud in the center of the gallery are hieroglyphics, Runic characters, ancient Pictish graphemes, and modern English letters, mixed with contemporary, tech-centered memes and emojis. They invite the viewer to imagine written language as an ongoing, living human endeavor.

5

Thomas Athey

Faciem Eximia

6

Constructio Conclavia

Constructio Flavus

Faciem Obiectum

Dougherty Arts Center, Austin

7

Charles Heppner

In the Woods Breathing

8

Window of the Givers

Arboreal Jewels

Sound of a Cold Wind

Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, NY

9

Leslie Kell

See What Tomorrow Brings

10

He Walks in Quiet Solitude

Involved in a Typical Daydream

Behind the Seen, KACC, Cornels Gallery

A Key for Every Door

11

Chalda Maloff

Instant of Infinite Duration

12

Rally

Seeing Without Looking

Shadow Catcher

Ceres Gallery NYC

13

Paul McGuire

wave

14

water music III

ophelia

Dragonfly Gallery, Austin, Texas

breath

15

Shirley Steele

View of installation, Ceres Gallery NYC: CLOUD STORAGE: MEMES & GRAPHEMES

16

View of installation, Ceres Gallery NYC: CLOUD STORAGE: MEMES & GRAPHEMES

17

To learn more about the participating artists please visit their individual websites at:

Thomas Athey the-memeplex.com tathey@swbell.net

Charles Heppner charlesheppner.com heppchas@mac.com

Leslie Kell lesliekell.com kellcreative@gmail.com

Chalda Maloff chalda.com cmaloff@medium-s.com

Paul McGuire paulmcguireart.com ptmcg@austin.rr.com

Shirley Steele steelestudio.com shirleysteele01@gmail.com

18

The Kerr Arts & Cultural Center is an art center dedicated to promoting the local artist community through exhibitions, education and programs.

It is located at 228 Earl Garrett Street, in the heart of downtown Kerrville, TX. Hours of operation are Wednesday through Saturday, 10 am – 4 pm and Sunday, 1– 4 pm

PHOTO CREDITS:

Page 5: Chalda Maloff portrait by Philip Rogers Page 13, 16, 17: Installation photos by Max Yawney

100100101010011000100101011011101000001101 001010001000100101000100010111010100110010 1011010111010111001THOMAS1ATHEY10011001010 010101001001001010010111010101000101010100 10100101CHARLES0HEPPNER0100101000110101010 001010100110010100101101010010100011010101 101010010100111010100011001001LESLIE0KELL0 100001110101001100100100101001001000101010 010110CHALDA1MALOFF11100110011010010101001 101001110010100101101010010100100101001101 111000101001010100101PAUL0McGUIRE001011010 100101000110101000010010000001010010100101 01010110001101SHIRLEY1STEELE10100101010100 001110101001101101011101011100110011010010 101001110010100101101010010100100101001101