Postcard image by Toru Nakanishi.
Featuring 31 Artists
- Michael Barsanti - South Royalton, VT
- Nadine Boughton - Medford, MA
- Elsa Campbell - East Boston, MA
- Gloria Carrigg - Jamaica Plain, MA
- Michael Cirelli - Londonderry, NH
- Ryan Cheney - Malden, MA
- Monique Cousineau - Jamaica Plain, MA
- Mark Dyer - Colorado Spring, CO
- Tomislava Franicevic - Toronto, Canada
- Eric Gould - Pawtucket, RI
- Leah Guzman - Worcester, MA
- Donald Jacobson - Portland, OR
- Michael E. Jewell. Jr., Framingham, MA
- Liz Johnson - Canon City, CO
- Fred Levy - Watertown, MA
- Mark Lies - Beverly, MA
- Joan McCandlish - Medford, MA
- Denyse Murphy - West Newbury, MA
- Leah Oates - Brooklyn, NY
- David Powell - Winchester, MA
- Todd Prussman - Haverhill, MA
- Cristina Pujol - Somerville, MA
- Andrew Rapp - Medford, MA
- Sandra Salamony - Cambridge, MA
- Isabel Seliger - Berlin, Germany
- Patric Shurden - Norman, OK
- Chen Su - Malden, MA
- Milos Toth - Somerville, MA
- Dotty Tribeman - Lexington, MA
- Lynn Wiles - Somerville, MA
- Ian Winters - Berkeley, CA
All images & content © COPY RIGHT of Exhibiting artists and artSPACE@16. All rights reserved. Images at this site may not be reproduced in any form without the permission of the artists.
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Image by Toru Nakanishi © All Rights Reserved.
*Guest juror, Toru Nakanishi has been invited to show his recent work in this show.
In COLOR BY DIGITAL, Nakanishi has gathered 31 artists who explore and/or “abuse” the possibility of inkjet printing technology. The theme of COLOR BY DIGITAL is open to artists’ own interpretations. Works were selected by the juror from jpeg submissions on the basis of originality, technical quality and thematic depth. This exhibit includes images originally captured by conventional (film) cameras, digital cameras, filters, flatbed scanners or images that are created with the combination usage of computer with other mediums. The images have been completed (printed) with the use of archival inkjet printers.
Special attention was held for black and white entrants, for the juror’s understanding of the problem artists are facing with black and white printout from digital files. His very intention is to encourage those who are trying to succeed in that field.
Several approaches are apparent in this body of selected work. For this reason, the exhibition is presented as a consequence. It’s our intention in putting forward this installation to inform and share with the viewers what great possibilities digital photography technology can take us to.
Somerville based photographer Lynn Wiles created a series of still life compositions including “Orchid Swim” after experimenting with Photoshop and scanning different types of objects using her flatbed scanner. This series of still life were covered with tissue paper or plastic to create a background and to add another dimension to the image. The image, “Orchid Swim” has an ethereal quality, photographic yet not.
Medford artist Joan McCandlish looks for surprises in the plant forms she scans on flatbed. On display is “Sputnik”, started out as a fairly regular potato, chosen at the market for its distinctively patterned skin. She scanned it again, after it was discovered a few days later happily sprouting a whole new personality. Her work reveals new ways of seeing the ordinary in exciting new ways.
“Jell-O People” and “Soft Landing”, two of Nadine Boughton's startling collages in the show were created by scanning images from advertising and romance fiction found in 1940's and '50s women's magazines. As a free-lance photographer in Medford, Boughton looks at food as an object of culture. In this case the sensuous and wildly colorful forms of Jell-O, which she then transforms digitally into narratives that have humor and bite.Michael Barsanti of South Royalton, Vermont, a fulltime faculty teaching in the ceramics department at the Museum School, is among the exhibiting artists who use digital photography as tools of narration, as archives, or commendation. Through photographed constructed raw clay narratives, found and created objects, Michael probes the irony and hypocrisy of the human species. He examines the disconnect between the potential intelligence of humans and their misguided use of technology and myth, in the struggle for power and obsession. This attempt manifests as “WMD Series: Run Away” presented in the show.
Barsanti explains, "I was first drawn to Digital Photography in order to avoid the toxic photo chemicals of traditional photographic processing. I then found myself drawn to and excited by the limitless options for the formal aspects of the digitally printed image. I have used printers from the days of dot-matrix to now, the finest inkjet technology. These are only tools, challenging me to master them in expressing my ideas." 
Brooklyn New York based multi-disciplinary artist Leah Oates documents artist’s books she created digitally. One of her two pieces in the show “Territory: a poem” explores issues surrounding the structure of the self and the projections and limitations placed upon individuals by the media and other individuals.
Andrew Rapp is a photographer and writer working out of Boston. He presents three commendation pieces in this exhibition.
They are part of a series titled "First Steps" that imagines a near future when people have the option of integrating technologies into their bodies. Each work is similar to a page of a graphic novel and profiles a character who has received implants that expand their ability to work, sense, or play. These somehow gloomy text and images invite viewers to question “what-would-it-be-like-to-live-this-way?”"Though I have worked in film, I much prefer shooting digital images because of the seamless transition it provides to my digital editing and printing environment. Working with film made me feel like a technician. Working in digital makes me feel like an artists," Andrew Rapp says.
Tomislava Franicevic, a graphic designer and photographer from Toronto Canada presents two digital assemblages entitled “Do You Still Walk on Your Toes?” and “A Room in Oregon” in this show. Both works are from her “Honesty is Best Left Unread” series, a reflection on a recent tumultuous experience of love and illness that has found its release in the digital layering of photographs, words and illustrations.Among the exhibiting artists who use the digital camera in documenting environs we usually overlook is East Boston based artist Elsa Campbell. She presents exceptional glimpses of these environs in “DC Reflections”. Campbell’s photographs are a mysterious blend of landscape and space travel. Her window reflections show a world that is at once soft and futuristic. The layering of images is a technique Elsa also uses in her other artwork to create poignant or funny meanings by things taken out of context.
Beverly artist Mark Lies' piece "Waking Up", is a single frame narrative depicting the sometimes arduous transition from an unconscious state to a conscious one. Muted colors and hazy intersecting lines define the stages of a person rising from bed. The overall feeling is one of soft hesitancy at this daily crossing from one world to another.
Lies says, "The ability to practice photograph inexpensively and effectively from home is probably the greatest advantage of the digital revolution. The opportunity for image manipulation and the ease of execution by contrast to the darkroom is also of great value. The range of different surfaces to print on makes experimenting with paper just as exciting as altering in Photoshop. With so many choices now at our fingertips the most challenging part of an artist's work is having a clear vision and effective editing."
“Precipice”, is one of Ian Winters’ recent landscape series. An overhanging cliff fogged up by a disappearing image of a concrete jungle. Currently based in California, Winters says, “I’m interested in these traces, the residue of what is, will be or was or isn’t, or could be that inhabit every bit of lived landscape.” Ian Winters was trained in photography, film and performance at the Museum School, Boston. His recent work has encompassed both still photography, video, site-specific installations, performance and training in improvisational theater both in the US and Europe.
Michael Cirelli is a fulltime photography teacher at Merrimack High School in New Hampshire. His recent photographs of the beaches of “Hampton beach, NH” explore the constant visual changes that take place throughout the seasons of beach life. Michael’s color photographs represent the beautiful hues and tones that cover the skies and landscapes surrounding the ocean. Michael has depicted these colors in the photograph “White House”, where a house with a grass driveway, sits oddly on top of a hill.Michael Cirelli of New Hampshire says, "I am very excited about digital imaging and inkjet technology as long as the companies making this new technology support and keep alive the silver halide process. My fear is that in ten years there will be only one type of photography. It is very exciting now to know that an artist can use pinhole camera, large format 8x10 camera, holga or a new Nikon D2X and get amazing photographic results.”
“To me that is creativity at its finest. Having every medium available offers artists many different tools to use and create their vision. The new Digital Lift Style has made creating hundreds of prints at any size with exceptional results, very easy. But I remember just 3 years ago when I spent 10 hours a day, working in the darkroom on my personal artwork...there was definitely something in that process that got me addictive to photography and it would be sad to see it go," Cirelli adds.
The art deco photograph Gloria Carrigg presents is a hood ornament of a Duesenberg classic automobile from the early 1900’s - proving that the roads and streets of America and Europe were once outdoor galleries. The automobile craftsmanship from the 1900’s was art built with elegance, style, power and speed. Currently living in Jamaica Plain, MA, Carrigg is one of today’s contemporaneous artists trying to recreate those expressive and graceful ornaments digitally.Worcester artist Leah Guzman is a mostly self taught artist who’s recently discovered the flexibility and uniqueness of digital photography. She has two works in the show, “Shimmer” and “Swirl”. "Swirl" highlights the division of the world above and the world below in this intriguing picture of a tern on a koi pond in Orlando, Florida. The often hidden activity below water's surface shows in fascinating swirling patterns that lend an air of mystery and activity to an otherwise peaceful scene.
Malden artist Chen Su’s working mediums include documentation digital photography. Chen Su documents her observations in her photo journals as she travels. Her work entitled “West Carry Pond” is a close-up of pond water habitat. In this quiet image, cotton ball -like green algae mingle with rocks and aquatic weed. Where shallow, glass-calm water and a mud-covered pond bottom collide.
Lexington artist Dotty Tribeman works in printmaking and photography and often combines the two with alternative techniques.
"As a printmaker, I have become enamored of the digital print and images achieved through both scanning and digital photography. The immediacy of the result and the opportunity for continued manipulation are a happy counterpoint, but not a replacement, to the process-oriented work of traditional printmaking." Her subtly beautiful photographs of water in undefined space are part of her investigation into the concept of "nothing" in our culture. In her work, "nothing" always means "something."Among the 31 exhibiting artists, the following are those who bring out eccentric vibrant colors in their images through manipulation in Photoshop.
Milos Toth from Somerville, MA has called out the theatrical colors in “Decay” and “Music Machine” by mere manipulation in Photoshop to highlight contrast of blue and orange hues. These images are striking indeed.Portland Oregon artist Donald Jacobson has an electrical engineering background and has been a glassblower for the past 28 years and recently merged into digital photography.
Jacobson presents "Solitary Geyser #1" exemplifying his love of color and design in nature. The image's bold colors, found in Yellowstone National Park, portrays what he saw. The digital darkroom was used sparingly, only to make the image true.
The strong, simple geometric composition and dramatic colors of Todd Prussman's “Four Square” presents surprising complexity. The garish, decayed pink and green paint of this wall's past, its commercial animation, are fading as the natural brick re-emerges -- as if the bones have been revealed in a corpse. Prussman, who is a Haverhill based free lance assignment photographer says, “Four Square”, is not a rallying image, however. Instead, it captures the effect of time, the decay of past ambition and the simple truth of structure.”
Mark Dyer’s “Shilorna” is a part of his larger body of work called “Transparent Boundaries.” Dyer who currently lives in Colorado captures these still-life images, mostly fruit and/or flowers through rapid camera movement using a single exposure. Though the boundaries of each object are amorphous and not well defined, the essential ingredient of rose petal or tulip, tangerine or nectarine holds true. Dazzling colors and the fluid quality in his work intensify our visual experience.A Principle Photographer for BlackLight Studios in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Monique Cousineau thinks in color. She sees colors hiding between other colors and sees an inherent sexuality in color that compels her to reach out to it. Much of her work delves into the saturation of color, colors draped in shadow and dappled with light, calling out the architectural principles of form and applying that to people and nature these essential qualities manifest in her vivid color work called “Blue Hair”.
Rhode Island of Art Museum photographer Erik Gould's work "untitled diptych" reflects an interest in responding to color found in the environment intuitively. Digital technology allows Gould to extend this process beyond the capture of the image. Images are sorted and shuffled over a period of time, combined and divided until the juxtapositions of a pairing resonate. The final work is then realized as an archival ink jet print.
Subdued colors can be found in Isabel Seliger’s "Interfaces (Screens/Satellites)" Seliger is currently a visiting student at University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin focusing on Digital Arts and Visual Studies. Her work explores the structure of artificial image reception, as well as the way in which the human eye negotiates electronic stimuli.
In this particular sequence, image information such as pixels, dots and grids recreate colors, surfaces and landscapes as perceived by electronic devices, posing the rhetorical question: Where does photographic image formation begin, and to what extent do electronic images mimic human vision and nature?
Seliger states, "I use different methods in order to generate "photographic" images although I still predominantly rely on shooting with analog film, using a Hasselblad and Nikon. However, I go 100 percent digital when it comes to the printing process, and, before that, to making corrections and manipulations in Photoshop. Inkjet printing technology has given me maximum control as far as colors and overall image quality are concerned, and it also provides me with the option to print on non-photographic papers such as Hahnemuhle, which greatly enhances my art."Those who follow the traditional photography approach will never crop their images. In contrast, the process of digital imaging is always there pushing the boundaries. It gives room to experimenting, manipulating, correcting, distorting, deconstructing and reconstructing the image(s). The flexibility of this approach is manifest in these mixed medium college assemblages in the studio and the help of Photoshop.
Currently an assistant professor teaching Computer Animation in the Art Department of Colorado State University, Liz Johnson’s digital collage work is more about risk taking and what the digital tools can do. “Swirl” is an example of the aforesaid, experimenting with digital photographs and combining them, and manipulate with Photoshop.
Cambridge artist Sandra Salamony works behind the digital camera, in front of the computer and in the studio. In “Monty Ikebana” she forces the inclusion of fauna with flora under the guise of the beautifully spare Ikebana flower arrangement that is both humorous and delightful. Her process incorporating archival printouts on acid-free papers, coats them with layers of encaustic medium, and then tones them with layer of tissue paper, tea or oils to add depth.
Mike Jewell’s digital print entitled “GOD WAS A BOY ONCE PLAYING WITH FIRE” is created in layered sheets with vellum. This image, which is part of a series of prints, is based on the artist's relationship with God. The Framingham based artist stated, “There is an effort in trying to humanize God, to become closer to Him, to understand Him, to believe that He is like us.”
A founding member of The Art Room in Merrimac, MA, Denyse Murphy also evaluates collages made by students for a study conducted through the Psychology department at Harvard University. Murphy is interested in the dynamic of change occurs in belief and in identity. This is revealed in her work “IMMOLATION #6”, a dynamic conversion of cool blue cyanotype to the warm orangey flames of digital print indeed is an act of killing for sacrifice thus gave birth to this vigorous print.
Long-time avid amateur film photographer Dave Powell shoots atmospheric infrared photographs using filter and digital camera. But while traditional infrared photos are normally black-and-white, Winchester based “photoartist” Powell often adds color to create dramatic "infrared dreamscapes."
His work, “Ghost Arbor,” was actually taken at high noon (at the Tower Hill Botanic Garden, in Boylston, MA). The raw image was converted to black-and-white, copies were toned amber and blue. The colored copies were then combined in the digital darkroom to reveal a ghost illuminated by an eventide lamp. The "ghost" is actually Dave's wife Kate, who was blurred by a 3-second exposure through the black infrared filter. Powell’s technique, literally is “painting” these atmospheric images using light and structures within the photos. The result is magnificent.
While teaching art at a public school in Oklahoma, Patric Shurden has been developing his artistic imagery by merging the Polaroid SX-70 print with the digital realm. His spontaneous interaction with the surface of the SX-70 print filled the images with energetic lines and organic distortions that set the stage for his subtle digital manipulations. The artist has presented a view of environments where the components are constantly changing through everyday use. This art expresses a passing moment in which the mundane becomes grandeur and the overlooked becomes the focus of energy.Fred Levy shows three pieces “Mean Faces” commenting on how clean and refined people’s actions are expressed in current society.
Levy, who has been teaching Introduction to Photoshop at The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University since 1998, says, "The camera alone limits the expressions of my models.” By using Polaroid scanned into the computer and heavily manipulated in Photoshop, Fred Levy brings out that inner mean face that is inside.
Somerville based photographer and dancer Cristina Pujol captures black and white body movements that may go unnoticed to the spectator’s eye with her digital camera . In “Feeling”, Pujol succeed in capturing the dynamic and emotional expressions on this fascinating dancer’s face, and strength and control is demonstrated in the dancer’s body movements. The costume emphasizes and amplifies the grace, power and independent control of this feminine form.
“Two Men Walking” by Mike Jewell; is part of a black and white print series based on the artist's relationship with God. “We want to feel He has the same issues as we do with growing up, with love, hate, loneliness, friends, and with life. If this can be achieved, then maybe we were created in His image." Jewell stated, and he hopes his work would spark discussion among the people who view it.
Malden resident, Ryan Cheney who is currently a graduate student at the Museum School shows one black and white digital print in this exhibit. In the work entitled "Soldier Boy", Cheney is bringing the chaos, entropy and disorder of the desert into the digital realm. His work explores the themes of pollution, habitation, and desolation by ascribing these desert characteristics onto the otherwise perfect realm of digital photography......................................................................................................
PROFILE: GUEST JUROR TORU NAKANISHI
A native of Nagoya, Japan, Toru Nakanishi lives in Somerville, MA. He received a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts, Boston in 1992. In his art works, Nakanishi intends to create images that are indeed Beautiful yet accessible and have the ability to draw the viewer in to ponder many layers of meaning, commentary and context. In his recent work, Nakanishi focuses on food items using a flatbed scanner instead of a conventional style camera. His homage theme is ramen noodles, which addresses the status and positioning of this food in popular culture in the US as well as in Japan. Toru Nakanishi has also been working in collaboration with numerous other artists in the areas of photography, printing, installation, and jewelry making. Collaborations have been done with Lesley Nakanishi, Melissa Shook, Robert Markey, Bart Uchida, Malcom Goldstein, Taylor McLean, Stella McGregor, and Nora Valdez. He was a guest lecturer at Massachusetts College of Art in 1999, and was invited to speak at Montserrat College of Art in 1998. Nakanishi's photography works are exclusively represented by Gallery Kayafas, Boston. He has participated in the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park's Corporate Program since 1998.
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artSPACE@16 (Malden, MA) is a non-commercial art space est. in 1998. This alternative art space is operated on a voluntary basis. It has been making today's art accessible to the community-at-large by donating space for ongoing art exhibitions and collaborating on related events within the community. artSPACE@16 has created a common ground for everyone to come together for art appreciation, an educational experience, and information sharing as well as networking. It distributes information regarding artist studio space through postings on the artSPACE@16 website and e-mailing list. It also provides information on art resources and exhibition opportunities in and outside of Malden. Through these ongoing voluntary art initiatives, artSPACE@16 hopes to continue making its contribution in strengthening the connection between artist communities in the neighboring cities. artSPACE@16 encourages others to come play a vital role in establishing a vibrant artist community in Malden.
"There is a place for everyone.
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The 29th Exhibition IN THE NEWS- visit http://www.artSPACEat16.com/archive.htm
