I am irrevocably addicted to the computer, constantly in battle with claiming back my time from the intriguing distractions it provides.   The allure the technology offers is impossibly powerful, with endless streams of music and inspiring pictures floating within reach, holding me hostage for hours with my own fascination.  Between my love of digging for new virtual stimulation and the necessity to participate in the waking, screen-less world, I’ve become painfully aware of a sensation of being constantly tired.  How can others survive in this overwhelming age with such a feeling, always struggling to keep the mind away from a digital succubus, and at the same time, force the body to survive in reality? My attempts to understand just what draws me has worked its way into my practice, and my artwork is slowly becoming a catalog of a journey to discover a balance of the two existences. 

In my current works, natural and artificial forms seep into each other, replace and imitate one another, and either glorify technology and its potential beauty, or give it a harsh and predatory edge.  Drawings finished in watercolour and markers are small, intimate, and full of colourful detail, often depicting fictitious people and animals.  Architecture and artificial items are recognizable in these scenes, but have organic qualities to them in their small imperfections and resemblance to the natural forms that surround them.   Even objects like clockwork songbirds and computer keyboards are worked into the scenery as if they belong.  My digital pieces, on the other hand, hold coolness and precision in monochrome hues.   Attempts to meld the organic qualities of my real media artworks with technology become much more monstrous in subject.  Artificial structures no longer blend into the scenery.  They attempt to choke it instead, overwhelming flesh-and-blood with wires and metal plates, turning them into scratchy-lined cyborgs onscreen.  While my tangible pieces work towards integrating artificial forms into natural life, my digital art absorbs the remaining frustrations of my addiction to display them as technologically-overwhelmed monsters. 

Since realizing how deeply I rely upon my computer for information and entertainment, I have paid greater attention to how much of my days and weeks are devoted towards exploring the Internet, and how much of that influence relates back into my artwork.  It has become a personal rule to try drawing with real media as often as possible, to separate myself from online distraction.  On the other hand, utilizing a tablet and screen has become a whole other experience with positive results.  Rather than attempting to recreate a style of watercolour or marker in Adobe Photoshop, I take advantage of the program’s flexibility to create precise imagery and fine, clean lines.  In a way, my drawings made with Photoshop, worked and reworked over again with a flexibility I cannot achieve with actual tools, make what could have been wasted time into a creative process as credible as any drawings made in my sketchpad.

With my art, I want to find a middle ground between artificial and natural structures, between the technologic and organic.  It is my goal to work towards a clear interpretation of a conjoined world, identifying the boundaries we share with virtual ground.   I want to recognize this reaction I have had towards my electronic-saturated lifestyle, and in finding a way to compromise and slowly detach myself from an addiction, create an archive of work that spans across self-imposed boundaries between digital and natural spaces to find some form of harmony.

Let’s give this a shot, eh?

Here’s hoping Tumblr’s the answer to my funky art/commission reference website needs.