The number of photographs uploaded to the internet every day has increased exponentially. The Worldwide Web has helped discover a new form of abstraction for art and has established immense platforms for digital images to be shared. These images are then exposed for anyone to perceive. “What pictures want in the last instance, then, is simply to be asked what they want, with the understanding that the answer may well be, nothing at all.” (quoted from What do pictures want?: the lives and loves of images, Mitchell, W. J. Thomas, 1942-, pg)

 

I would like to introduce you to my image gallery -images which have inspired or intrigued me to paint in a particular style or to reflect a particular mood or emotion. I have brought these together into a virtual space to try and understand their links and connections

This will give me an understanding of process and decision making and consequently enhance my concepts. Each image in the gallery has been edited, sometimes only subtly, further adding to the reproduction of images.

 

I have been analysing the different reasons artists use the internet and source imagery.

I have examined the types of images that have been created and reviewed whether it is contemporary image, beauty, colour, composition or whether it is more random in nature. We are drawn to certain things for many reasons and it is an artist’s perspective that is influencing their choice of image.

 

Artists reproducing found images is derivative work however originality emerges in the recreation of that image. The appropriation and abstraction of work like this adds to the art.

Celia Hempton, Lydia Blakeley, Jiyeon Kim, Mauro C Martinez are all examples of painters who Extract and adapt from our digital world.

 

Blakeley is a British painter who paints images found on the internet or photographs and videos of moments that have inspired her. Taking the photographs out of their original screen context and into a traditional medium of oil paint. She is treating the digital medium with a degree of cynicism and irony, using humour to portray the social media culture. This display encapsulates the impact that modern celebrities and ‘influencers’ have on our lives. Her images of animals being treated as high end fashion commodities reflect her views of consumerism and how it manifests itself on the internet.

 

Jiyeon Kim Korean Berlin-based painter who paints around the concept of human nature and portraiture in the modern world. The tinder project is a series of acrylic painted portraits which explore the privacy we have online and how social media effects the way we portray ourselves to others. The paintings also link to the notion of copyright in the art world by taking the photographs from tinder profiles without permission, however changing the name and age of the subjects. His work encapsulates irony on a number of levels:

By permanently capturing 100 images that are usually swiped away either left or right instantly into works of art is a contradiction.

By creating a more permanent form of the tinder image perhaps enabling the longer lasting relationship that Tinder users seek.

 

Mauro C Martinez an American artists, who uses internet images and dark humour to create his work. Showing the social media culture through irony, initiating moods in his painting. Popular photos and ‘memes’ being juxtaposed by painting them – the difference between an image posted online reaching a large audience immediately which would only be trending for a few days and creating the permanency and elegance and skill of oil painting on canvas.

 

The British painter Celia Hempton work considers the feeling of discomfort. The series she has been creating since 2014 called ‘Chat Random’ in which` she paints subjects from the internet using a chat room. In this work she captures images of males utilising the Chat Room for sexual purposes. Her lack of ability to find people to sit for portraits prompted a randomised use of subjects and she was able to select individuals who were physically unusual. . This means that the process of choosing what to paint is very random, she has spoken about her decisions on subjects for her work and she said it is often someone who is ‘physically unusual’. Another important aspect of this series is the way painting an image from a screen impacts the painting itself. Having lighting from a computer screen, the quality of the image which would be pixelated, and the component of time adds to the features of these pieces. Using the internet offers the factor of the unknown and Hempton speaks about her experience behind the paintings and how this can be reflected into them. Hempton said “Online space can be traversed like a vast and unpredictable landscape, exposing unfiltered and extreme aspects of human nature, as well as the banal and uneventful.” (quoted from Hempton).

 

Richard Prince, Thomas Ruff and Dan Hays are examples of artists who use a new form of abstraction. Both Dan Hays and Thomas Ruff use the process of compression in their work in similar ways however for dissimilar reasons.

 

New York based artist, Richard Prince’s work is a controversial and contemporary take on a portrait. The 6ft prints he has sourced, of mostly women and celebrities, from Instagram only speak for themselves. Mixing painting, image and text, these non-traditional portraits show the vanity of today’s society and pushes the boundaries of copyright in mass media

 

A German contemporary photographer Thomas Ruff uses the internet to create and recreate images. Using only the internet, Ruff created a series called ‘Jpegs’ in which he did not use a camera. He downloaded mass quantities of image files called Jpegs that he found on the internet. Ruff started with an image from the 9/11 terrorist attack, a similar theme throughout this series of disasters. For these images he prints downloads and prints them in a low-resolution in large scale which leave them very pixelated. Ruff’s work is commenting on the way digital images are viewed and spread in today’s society.

 

Dan Hays is a British painter and sometimes a digital artist. ‘Colorado Impression’ is a piece Hays produced that was created through the internet. He sourced an image from a website from a person who was also called Dan Hays and used this photograph at his subject to paint. The photograph was a Jpeg file which is compressed digital images and a common format for pictures on the internet. Because the images are compressed and then decompressed, they lose quality, in the Hays’ painting he kept the pixelated characteristics. This piece is Hays’ early work when he was considering the issues of genuineness and thinking about what it means to paint from digital images. “There is a parallel between the way computers compress images with “JPEG” and the way that the Impressionists or Cézanne strove to reduce the amount of painted information to aid in speed of production and capture, yet also to reveal the essence of a scene” (quoted in Dan Hays: Paintings, p.30). In contrast to other artists I have reviewed Dan Hays takes a digital medium as his starting point to creating a traditional art imagery rather than introducing paint and brush techniques to a digital image.

 

Each artist has adapted the use of the internet as a source material, all of them commenting on the circulation of images over this vast system. The appropriation of images is a common theme however all the work has different outcomes. Each artist has adopted a contrasting techniques and methods on how using the internet as their raw material but each ultimately display a level of irony and contradiction to find imperfection. Another consistency throughout the works is the reference to how digitalisation can become divorced from true artistic talent.

 

Obtaining photographs from social media brings in the issue of status. The digital image affects how we see ourselves and others, feeding into status and popularity. An online user is more likely to see popular images driven by the algorithms that underpin internet technology. The web gives new concepts for artists to explore either being unsympathetic or antagonistic towards the digital age. We are inundated with images, whether they are on our screens or on product packaging. This makes it difficult to differentiate between fake and reality. For centuries art played a role in modifying our political and religious beliefs and now social media has become a platform of influence and persuasion through roles such as ‘influencers’. The digital medium allows this to be compelling, fast paced and relentless. Painting is taking these digital images out of the original context into an art form. This leaves space for viewers to look at the pictures in a different sense, allowing the application of different meaning and interpretation.

 

Eve Gallagher

2021