The Play of Paint and Pixel

Paintings and digital prints by Martha Rock Keller,
Washington Street Gallery,
120 E. Liberty St., downtown Ann Arbor, MI
February 15 - March 27, 2005

When I first began to use a Corel Painter program on my Mac G4 computer (with a lot of help from friends), I was skeptical whether it would advance my painting. But when I was able to focus on the program's strengths (which for me are quick color change and flexibility with other design elements), I began to notice changes in my painting. I was more playful in experimenting with color, for instance, and more flexible in my thinking about compositional dynamics.

I was intrigued to learn that with the Painter program when using the Wacom Intuos 2 stylus and tablet with its sensuous surface and feeling of flow, I could, after developing a series of images, get into a painter's "high," the expansive state that image-making with its intense concentration on seeing can incite. Painting has a slower rate of change and more risk is involved (in making changes, for example, there's no click for saving states along the way - and no "undo," no "step backward").

Painting demands more time and materials for each artwork and, perhaps because each brushstroke remains more sensitive to the touch or kinesthetics of the brush and the know-how of the painter, it requires a different depth and quality of thought and commitment. Still, in general, design considerations apply equally to both media; the feeling for gestalt principles - the grouping and context of elements - and for form, space, and color remain the same. Mainly, for me, the flexibility of the digital medium makes up for most of its deficits. And I can apply this flexibility and exploration of themes with the digital imagery to the painting at hand.

This exhibition plays with the two media, with two colors, blue and red, and with two image themes: water imagery associated with Sleeping Bear landscapes, and flower imagery associated with an Anemone or Amaryllis. Both the Sleeping Bear and flower themes have been part of my painting for years. Hopefully, my digital artwork enhances and invigorates my new painting and vice versa.