Chicago Artists Coalition News
April 2003
Painting by Bytes: Digital Brushwork
By Susan Aurinko

Painting involves brushes - true or false?

The answer to that question was once a no-brainer, for whether oil, watercolor, acrylic, guache or Sumi-e, painting has, for the better part of recorded history, involved brushes in some form. That is, until digital technology placed the mouse and keyboard in the hands of artists, adding tremendous agility and a variety of possibilities to their creative repertoire. Two painters who have not only benefited, but sincerely thrive on their new set of tools are Chicago artists Claire Wolf Krantz and John F. Miller. Going digital has revolutionized the way both create it has moved their work forward, given additional volume to their  artistic voices and increased their potential to create work that can be editioned as more than "one of one", a  significant advantage for those whose genre is painting or drawing, which cannot be reproduced without resorting to some sort of printing process. Both Krantz and Miller limit their editions to about 25, which naturally increases their value, while still permitting numerous collectors to own the same image. In this way, digital images are like photographs or etchings, and are easily, albeit expensively, reproduced from a single digital file.  It is a win/win situation for both the artist and the potential collector, because there are multiple pieces available at a lower price point than paintings.
    
Krantz, who has logged over 20 solo and numerous group shows of her paintings, has been often and well reviewed, and is represented in the collections of several museums, including the MCA and the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington D.C., continues to paint using traditional tools, but has found that working digitally has broadened her ability to express herself. She has also sorted out the logistics - her paintings are represented by one Chicago gallery and her digital work by another. Krantz's digital art is strongly colored and dreamlike, combining personal photographic images, mainly  from her travels, with painted elements that are much like her painting style. Krantz  describes her process: "I start with an idea to explore, intuitively choosing my photographs and the size and shape of the overall work, and later, by pulling out that idea with paint and integrating it with my photos, I can access subcortical levels of my brain to understand issues that are not available to consciousness. By looking and thinking about the work as I progress, and after it's finished, I can gain a better understanding of what the work and my thoughts are about, and thus turn them into language. While not therapy, my process of making art allows me to  explore the world as I see it, making provisional sense of it as well as my place in it." Combining images with painted areas allows Krantz to "create new stories that are mysterious and ambiguous." Because the computer allows her to alter the photos, which "traditionally signify objective reality", Krantz is able to move into a realm of pure imagination, "thus subverting any attachment to a stable, objective truth."

Once Krantz has created a high-resolution digital file, it is sent to Nash Editions, the highly-reputable firm who prints most of her digital work. The result is an archival, limited edition Iris or Epson inkjet print.

Ultimately, painters-turned digital-artists may be creating work that will outlast not only photographic prints, but could possibly outlast paintings in the not-too-distant future. A standard chromogenic (color) print only remains stable for 30 or so years. Cibachrome or ilfochrome prints, gelatin silver and platinum prints fare a bit better, although, since the history of photography spans a mere 150 years, we have little to go on in the way of permanence over centuries. Inks that are being tested for up to 300 years are already being manufactured, and the same technology that is moving at the speed of light will take archival, digital art far as the future unfolds. It is not, however, the archival qualities that attract Krantz, Miller and others to the medium - rather it is the richness of the colors, the depth of the five and six-color blacks, the delectable marriage of the pigment to the paper and the radiance those disparate but related elements create. When Krantz and Miller paint with their computers, it is unlikely they are thinking of future generation studying their work. Rather, they are quite possibly caught up in the moment, for digital creation is nothing if not immediate, and it is that almost instant, yet ongoing, gratification that the artist eternally seeks, yet so seldom experiences.

Claire Wolf Krantz is an artist, freelance critic, and guest curator.
As an artist she works in a combination of painting and photography as well as digitally created images.