Who says technology’s only for the young?
"Derby Wharf" by Richard Scott (digital painting)
Richard Scott, a retiree and photographer from Salem, has been experimenting with a new medium: digital painting. He works with a digital tablet and stylus hooked up to his computer that allows him to paint virtually onto the screen. His images look remarkably like regular paintings, yet they are created entirely digitally, sans mess. While Scott originally painted with oils, watercolors, and acrylics, his experience with computers and digital photography inspired him to try something different.
His paintings, usually of quiet moments around Salem (but sometimes quite dramatic, as in “Derby Wharf”), have a wonderfully luminous quality and take him between 8 and 15 hours to create. The software he uses enables him to digitally mix colors and use various brush sizes, simulating using real paint.
"Torekov" by Richard Scott (digital painting)
While Scott is, of course, not unique in his choice of medium, in his experience, digital art has a long way to go before it’s formally recognized as a legitimate art form. So far, galleries and art institutions have been skeptical of the creation of his works and of the legitimacy of digital art as a medium in itself. In his words, the general consensus is that “it’s not a real art,” and he comments, “I think they think I’m faking it.”
While digitally altered and enhanced photographs have been pretty well absorbed into the world of the fine arts, digital images themselves seem to only exist in the digital world. Will we one day embrace computer media just as we’ve embraced painting, photography, or sculpture? Will a plastic stylus go so far as to replace the paintbrush? And is this a good thing?
The world of the “fine arts” has at least somewhat managed to ward off the encroachments of our new, digitized world - while the visual arts have always been inspired by technological advancements, traditional media arguably still dominates the fine art scene. Technology is slowly but surely worming its way into every aspect of society and culture - is the art world next?
