With a background in drawing, painting and printmaking, I’ve retained an interest in the human figure through a series of portraits completed over the years.
In the early eighties I began to experiment with using computer graphics paint systems to directly “frame grab” a subject. The portrait Cynthia & Richard: After the Fall makes use of the limits in resolution. In this portrait I digitally collaged and juxtaposed multiple points of view together to achieve greater detail. This strategy is not unlike analytical cubism of Picasso and Braque as well as the Polaroid collage portraits by David Hockney.
In my earlier digital prints I varied the pixel resolution to create an artificial depth of field that mimics the discrete movements of the eye called saccades. The eye foveates or fixates on regions of high-resolution detail and performs a dance of perception. Not only our eyes move but also our entire bodies. We interactively look at parts and wholes of an image at different distances.
In moving back and forth in front of a digital portrait different details come into focus creating a dynamically shifting image.
Cynthia & Richard has been exhibited at the Mills Gallery at the Boston Center for the Arts.
