The curator Hans Ulrich-Obrist asserts that the conflation of digital and analogue modes of production propose painting as an "urgent" medium. 1 This notion is mirrored in the view of fellow curator Laura Hoptman as she identifies the assimilation of digital languages into painting as an exciting area of development, asserting the importance of practitioners using different languages of digital painting. 2 Obrist and Hoptman confirm then, that not only is digital painting an important and current discourse, but that there are many different languages of digital painting. My work aims to assess and provide a taxonomy of these different painterly "languages", by proposing the development of what I have termed "Digital Factures".

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My research has identified a gap in current painting practice, specifically: there exists no definitive taxonomy of how morphologies of the painted gesture have formally evolved in relation to New Media Art and Post-Analogue painting. Instead, the literature focuses on these painting practices as a cultural whole. I wish to contribute to this emergent field through an analysis of: pigment vs pixel, paint as pure data, the authenticity of the brushstroke, the liminality of painting amidst analogue and digital modes of production, and the digital and mechanical autonomy of the painted gesture. Overall, I propose the question: What is the position of cross-disciplinary, expanded painting practices and processes within a perpetually shifting New Media Art discourse and how has this affected the development of the painted gesture? 

 

In my presentation, I will discuss my current, practice-based doctoral research findings, citing specific artist case studies and examples, which detail previously unclarified painterly trends emerging from a Post-Analogue painting discourse and what this means for the future development of the painted gesture. A selection of the artists I will discuss include: Matthew Stone, Romulo Celdran, Philip Gerald, Tim Zaman and Refik Anadol. I will also talk about my own studio work, which currently focuses on digital image-editing and photographic manipulation and how this can be translated in to painterly outcomes. Finally, I will discuss how the role of technologically focused artist’s tools can impact the outcome of the work being produced by today’s emerging artists.

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1  Andrew M. Goldstein, "Curator Hans Ulrich Obrist on What Makes Painting an “Urgent” Medium Today", (Artspace Online, 2017) https://goo.gl/NmN1V1

2 Dylan Kerr, "MoMA Curator Laura Hoptman on how to Tell a Good Painting From a “Bogus” Painting", (Artspace Online, 2017) https://goo.gl/axG7m2

 

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