The Coming of Digital Art in Post-Modern Times
As we step into art during present days, it is highly referenced that we are living in visual culture. Technology and software's are capable of producing art through images, videos, digital drawing tools and more. Traditional artwork has flown through the postmodernism era as they were introduced styles like digital art. Artists are getting familiar and learning to show their artistry through software's and use of materials like a digital pen.
Mentioning techniques include the fact that digital art takes various forms, including photography, charts, graphs, digital painting, digital drawing, animation, and more. Instead of using just your hands and an artistic tool, artists are able to use very little and use software to enhance their artwork to their liking. Postmodernism art is looked at very differently as it is believed that people need more sophistication and modernism in art. Rather than believing that art was all about the skill and craft of that artist through using various levels of artistry and various materials. This trend is becoming more and more fast-paced and can be seen as rushed creativity as artists are eager to complete an art piece. Digital art and the state of it today has the incentive for artists coming from technology, digital devices and internet. Artists look at digital art with wanting to bring their ideas through digital devices to the real world.
Jason Naylor
HUEMOTIONS- Sensitive x Hopeful by Jason Naylor. 2022. New York.
HUEMOTIONS, a collection of digital art created by Jason Naylor expressing it as the interaction of colorful exploration of feelings. These pieces are digitally hand-crafted creation of two or more sensations. Naylor's use of swirling colors and tones are to reflect feelings that come from our hearts. He uses an OPN Heart, a previous art collection to stamp these pieces while also adding on colors to show complexity of feelings. Jason continues to classify these art pieces as a vivid exploration of human emotion.
He uses the blending of colors that twirl and "dance" in dynamic colors and contrast to represent compounded feelings. This collection consists of 100 combinations of feelings, for example the piece shown reflects the feelings of Sensitivity and Hopefulness. Naylor's art is a direct connection with the postmodernism era of artwork as he creates many pieces of art digitally. He digitally crafted these pieces by hand, along with using drawing software's and digital drawing materials. As his mission to
bringing color and light into our world it's been done so by creating murals, digital illustration and more. He also collaborated with top brands including Sephora, Pepsi, GUESS. The art elements I see once viewing these pieces are vibrant colors that also touch on emotion, distinctive shaping, and tones. The colors as mentioned correlate with Naylor's goal to touch on complex feelings and distinctive shaping, through using his signature OPN heart which shows the
true sentiments found in our hearts. Lastly, he uses the tone from using darker colors to vibrant colors to connect with a specific type of feeling. I thoroughly enjoy this collection as he uses his artistic visions to touch on feelings and emotions.
ACT 2: LEND A HAND by Jason Naylor & Mancel Lindsey. 2022. New York.
ACT 2: LEND A HAND is a piece within Naylor's
Project K collection specifically
FOUNDATION, in which he instills it being a community of artists, collectors and more who find sentiment for "KINDNESS and humanity." (Naylor) This piece by Jason Naylor in collaboration with Mancel Lindsey created this large digital and animated mural to touch on the communication through art on human emotion. As this is just a picture of one scene of the digitally animated art piece, it has so many artistic touches to it. He uses the drawing and animation of a person climbing a never ending flight of stairs and being given kindness through help. In which he uses vibrant colors and tones and linework to instill the emotion of kindness through
lending a hand.
Naylor and Linsey had the vision of knowing that everyone struggles with a feeling of entrapment and need for help. He details it "a little help from a friend to level things out and get back on track." (Naylor) They use vibrant colors, linework, abstract shapes and lines, toning and digital software's to create a digital mural. This sub-collection within Project K consists of 3 murals; Act 1,2,3 which consist of "Make Time, Lend a Hand, and Smile." As visual/digital art has become more prominent as we are living in "visual culture," this would fit right in with the postmodernism era. This piece has many artistic elements shown, for instance art placement, use of vibrant colors, tones, and linework. Artistic Placement is shown through perspectives and space showing depth and linearity. The artists use of vibrant colors is a trademark of Naylor for communicating emotion. Shown through the full digitally artistic piece, linework is used within the stairs, the human figures and through his use of abstract shapes. This piece is super carefully crafted and I can't imagine the time spent making these, especially digitally with such precision and artistic vision.
Aisté Stancikaite
'Fiona'- Eyes by Aisté Stancikaite. 2018. Berlin.
'Fiona' a self-initiated series of GIFs created by Stancikaite in 2018 was her experiment in hand drawn animations. This piece is one of 3 drawings done by Stancikaite, consisting of the eyes looking side to side and the other blinking. She describes these pieces as pencil on paper and use of photoshopping. She began her experimentation through creating these animations as they are
"creating short yet intricate hand drawn animations." Her work consisted a lot of drawings and paintings using linework, shading and contrasting colors with colored pencils.
Aisté works out of Berlin, she specializes in figurative drawing and has also worked for fashion design and media clients including Instagram, Apple, Dior and more. She practices with real life proportions and intense color palettes of very few colors.
Stancikaite not only began exploring digital art but also used her signature artistic style to do so. She began with her pencil on paper drawings and used photoshop to create a GIF, in which it's a short movement of digital art. As Stancikaite's style of art is figurative drawing of real life proportions, her linework is so detailed and her precision of shading to add depth to her pieces really create a signature style of drawing. Her pieces consist of poses of people, up close on features, and her collaborations with brands also consist of her artistic style. Fiona is a style of digital art as it can be done by hand but it will then be enhanced using techniques to create a digital animation. Her elemental pieces found within this animation consists of linework, shading, the emotion of exploration. Her signature style is the intense use of linework in which she used shading to also enhance the depth and contrast of colors. Through exploring and experimenting, these eyes give off curiosity in which it correlates with the emotion she may have been trying to reflect with. I have always had a great sense of appreciation for linework and shading as I can imagine it takes a long period of time to finish a single piece.
'Kiss' by Aisté Stancikaite. 2018. Berlin.
'Kiss' another hand-drawn animated GIF Stancikaite created for Valentines Day 2018. This piece was a continuation of her exploration using GIF's to create an animation of her drawings. She describes this piece also as a drawing with
pencil on paper and usage of 'After Effects'. This is another piece reflecting on her artistic style in which she keeps them very simple and life-like but the detail is what draws you to them. You can see the use of shading and linework, by using thick/thin lines and use of shading done by the graphite found in pencils. As this piece has different positions of the actual kiss and the opening of the mouth, she continued her shading and pencil work throughout the whole animation. The animation shown consisted of several positions in which Stancikaite had to create individually and used digital software's to put all of them in one to create this.
Her style has been eye opening to me as any artist can ultimately create digital art. Doing so by creating pieces separately and put them together to create an illusion of 3D but remaining in 2D. As mentioned, this is a form of digital art within the postmodern era as GIF's have become a very popular use of art through animation, video, picture and more. The elements found in this piece is linework, shading, and her symbolization and emotion shown. Aisté has her style of art consisting of linework and shading to enhance the picture, as she uses color or simply sticks with black and white. The 'Kiss' is a symbolization of Valentines Day as she contributed this piece to that, and a kiss is seen as romantic in which it gives off that emotion as well. These types of artistic styles encourage me to want to create and explore different types of art as well.
Nik Ainley
Origins x Depthcore by Nik Ainley. 2010. New York.
'Origins x Depthcore' created by Nik Ainley who is a digital artist based out of New York, previously coming from the UK created this and several others for this collection. 'Mythic' a themed exhibition done by Ainley and Depthcore is described as one of the most "thematic collections ever". (Ainley) Ainley continues to explain that this collection took 5 months to create through planning, stylistic ideas and experimentation. Each piece took extensive "consideration, conceptualization, and execution" (Ainley) to bring a final product to life. Creating his pieces stems from the influence of the world of science, as you can see the usage of different concepts and other pieces showing prominence of nature. Looking more closely at the pieces, you can see textures, shading, tones, and contrasting colors to add depth. The face shows depth by Nik's usage of shading and different tones of vibrant and dark colors. There are a lot of abstract shapes incorporated as well as it surrounds the bright blue color that you are drawn to. Biggest takeaway is his use of textures and the theme he consistently has shown in this collection.
As for relevance, he is very well-known digital artist as he has worked with many brands from software's, tv shows, branding and digital designing companies. As technology has become the new norm within postmodern times, Nik found his interest and became heavily involved. He found this interest through the production of graphics on a computer and went into design and illustration. He uses new software and techniques routinely, as he works in 2D and 3D to produce his pieces. Throughout this piece the elements of texture, color, space, shape and form are all displayed through this piece. Texture is what caught my eye the most as you can see grass, moss, rock and more. Color is used prominently with vibrant colors and dark features. Space and shading to create depth is shown as you are drawn to the bright blue in the middle. It is so interesting to look deeper into Nik as he has worked for many, many brands that everyone uses and some of their productions could have been created by him.
'Cakes' by Nik Ainley. 2011. New York
'Cakes' created by Nik Ainley was made within Adobe, a graphic designing software as he created something that usually isn't his style. This was a solo art work collection that he created out of exploring different colors and shapes. Cakes is a piece of digital illustration displaying all kinds of cakes, ranging from cupcakes, pieces of cake, donuts and other pastries. In creating this piece he has incorporated very vibrant colors and precise shapes. Nik described this as "lovely cakes of all colours and shapes," as it is something different for him but also describes that a variety of artistic styles is a good way to keep it interesting in life. Close-ups of some of the cakes were shown, while also showing each cake separately, assuming he just put all of the pieces together to create the final product. The use of tone, vibrant colors, shapes, and linework all correlates with some of his style. Vibrant colors and dark colors is seen throughout a lot of his work and you can see that here as well. Although you can tell these are animations, he continuously pays attention to detail shown through the texture and tones on the cakes, sprinkles, and layering.
This is another direct relevance within digital art and postmodernism. Illustrations and animations are found to be a form of art as it still is done by an artist and by hand, it is just done digitally. This piece shows that anything can be drawn but artists that specialize in digital art show the use of texture, colors, precision, tones and shading. Digital artists often times also work with other brands as Nik has done so as well. As mentioned, the elements of vibrant colors, shapes, and linework are shown. His use of vibrant colors allows contrast to show, as well as textures. He uses many different shapes and precise linework in order to create a single cake. I can see how cartoons, video games, and gifs can be made from work done by Nik. Who knows, maybe a video game or cartoon network has pieces done by him.
References:
Schukei, Abby. “10 Digital Artists You Should Know.” The Art of Education University, 20 Feb. 2019, theartofeducation.edu/2019/02/10-digital-artists-you-should-know/.
Filtered, Un. “Postmodernism in Digital Culture.” Medium, 14 Dec. 2019, medium.com/@unfilteredum/postmodernism-in-digital-culture-53f341f509b1.
Feuerman, Carole. “The Modern Form of Art – Digital Artwork.” CAROLE A. FEUERMAN, 12 Jan. 2021, www.carolefeuerman.com/blog/2021/1/12/the-modern-form-of-art-digital-artwork#:~:text=Nowadays%2C%20traditional%20artwork%20has%20triumphed,sketches%20with%20a%20digital%20pen.
Naylor, Jason. “NFTS.” JASON NAYLOR, 2022, jasonnaylor.nyc/nfts.
OpenSea. “02 - Sensitive X Hopeful - HUEMOTIONS, by Jason Naylor.” OpenSea, 2022, opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/11696193337446226516000801545444727911845508191603370323436543346245680234497.
“Jason Naylor.” Foundation, 2022, foundation.app/@jasonnaylor.
Naylor, Jason. “Act 2: Lend A Hand.” Foundation, 2022, foundation.app/mint/eth/0x8cCa01519028D6411800aEFcdf53453e165418d6/3.
“Aiste Stancikaite.” The AOI, 2021, theaoi.com/wia/aiste-stancikaite-lou/#:~:text=Aist%C4%97%20Stancikait%C4%97%20is%20a%20Lithuanian%20artist%2C%20living%20and%20working%20in%20Berlin.
Stancikaitė, Aistė. “Eyes.” Aistė Stancikaitė, 2018, www.stancikaite.com/eyes.
Stancikaitė, Aistė. “Kiss.” Aistė Stancikaitė, 2018, www.stancikaite.com/kiss.
Ainley, Nik. “Origins.” Shinybinary, 2014, shinybinary.com/origins.html.
Ainley, Nik. “Depthcore XL Mythic.” Behance, 19 June 2010, www.behance.net/gallery/584753/Depthcore-XL-Mythic.
Ainley, Nik. “Cakes.” Behance, 8 June 2011, www.behance.net/gallery/1585451/Cakes.
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