Discovering the Unexpected

Thought I would give a little background on the creation of ‘Unexpected’ which gained entry into the Salon17 at Photofusion.

 

 

Curiously it was one of my very early experiments in Pixelism, but I parked it for a long while in order to explore simpler and cleaner forms of the process. To be honest I didn’t think people would “get it”, but I was wrong, I am pleased to say, for it has proven to be popular. Like all my work, seeing it on a screen like this really does not do it justice, this slice of video is the best I can do.

 

 

This piece is a good example why play is so important in creating art works. I had begun lowering the resolutions of many images – most of which looked awful. This was much the same. I liked the golden colours and it looked okay at a resolution of about 46 pixels by 40. Then I decided, what the hell, lets increase the resolution again. In a flash, Unexpected was born. Now I know what you are thinking, it’s as easy as that? Well before you go off and try this yourself, be warned, I have tried this on countless pictures since and they have never worked as well. This was a unique gift. For every successful image lay a large graveyard of rejected jpegs. Even with Unexpected I tried for days to make ‘better’ versions such as these….

 

 

 

Yet nothing surpassed the original.

 

 

So, why the pins? I explained a little about that in my Yorkshire Flower post, though here other considerations came into play. Yes, I still wanted to introduce something ‘real’ into all this zero and one manipulation, but I also wanted to allude to the serendipity of this process and, of course, life in general. So I made it resemble a bagatelle by using brass pins and making a deep brown frame for it. I even played with the idea of mounting a steel ball! Thankfully my better judgement kicked in…

 

 

 

Everyone asks, what was the original image, when looking at my work. I remain reluctant to offer an answer as the primary aim of Pixelism is to abstract the source. I am after all trying to create a new object into this world not reproduce one. I am also only too aware that once you know what the original image is your perception of the work is changed forever. As someone who will always knows what the original image is, I am envious you can have a pure experience with the art work that I will never have. However, with that caveat, I will in this case let those too curious to know see the original. If you would rather remain an innocent please do not scroll down to the bottom.

Hope you all get a chance to see Unexpected in its full glory – at an exhibition.  PHOTOFUSION – SALON17

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ARE YOU SURE?