Juliet Ann Martin: Ocean and Stones

  • ©,

Artist(s):


Title:


    Ocean and Stones

Exhibition:


Creation Year:


    2004

Medium:


    Inkjet print

Size:


    35 inches x 48 inches

Category:


Artist Statement:


    When I started creating what can be called computer art, my product was very much focused on the digital process and digital origins of the work. Now I am trying to introduce more of the human hand, more of the real into the art pieces. I want to create the metaphor of the cyborg on paper. My pieces are about combining a machine and a body. I have done this quite literally by scanning parts of my body and combining them in the computer. I am creating cybornetic art. Although it may have binary beginnings, it has multiplicitous ends. I am doing this by researching the human body and its contours and how that works into composition. These are ideas I want to challenge and question through digital prints.

Technical Information:


    I used the computer to bring the physical and the digital together. I scanned my body, using technology to bring the real into the unreal. By placing my body on the scanner, I was flattening a three-dimensional object to two dimensions. It gives the impression of my body captured behind glass. The scanner was painting my flesh. I took digital photographs of the ocean, again capturing the physical into the digital. I also scanned watercolors and line drawings that allowed me to move the feeling of the hand into a digital format. With all of these pieces captured in digital format, I used Photoshop
    as an advanced collage tool. Its blending modes allowed me to
    create unique effects and integrate the effects of two very disparate layers. The use of masks allowed sharp selection and integration of various objects. By carefully choosing the opacity, I was able to create transitions from an object in one modality to an object in another. Being able to use the HSB color model allowed me to delicately manipulate artistic aspects of a piece’s color space. Modulating hue, saturation, and brightness brought a level of sensitivity, not just blind scanning, to the piece. The individual objects transition smoothly because of careful use of dithering and feathering.
    The layers allow one to easily blend sharp objects like photography and soft objects like watercolors into a single piece.