This work is to explore the static performance of memory in dynamic time. My friend is the protagonist in the photo, and what is recorded is a conversation between me and her about memory. This is the memory of a conversation between me and her from my viewpoint, the expression and documentation of the memory in the present time. For her, it is the experience she recalled in the past, and the memories that happened in the past are recorded through her facial expressions. The feelings you have when you see this work are memories that happened in the future.
Duan, JX. (2021) I think what I think [oil painting].
150 x 140 cm
Camberwell, London
Sort of images of work in a gallery situation
Because of Lockdown, we couldn't go to the school's studio to create our artworks. I had to stay in my room to create my artwork. At this time, I think I can use virtual reality devices for virtual painting. So I bought the equipment, downloaded Tilt Brush and Sculptr VR, and made tentative creations.
Those videos show you how I use these 3D-painting virtual-reality applications to create some Images, which can help me to explain I have tried to use 3D VR to make some sculptures and 3D digital painting. And I am attempting to experience the difference between virtual immersive digital painting and physical painting that can touch the media.
Having listened to Isabelle Graw's Lecture: The Economic of Painting - Notes on the Vitality of a Success-Medium(2015), I found the ideas on the form of painting really helpful in rethinking the way paintings creation and understanding the importance of physical painting for artists.
"In other cases, printed matter has risen to the status of painting, like in Martin Kippenberger's work, where posters, and not only self-portraits, function as a vehicle for self-promotion as well. It is not only that painting incorporates other art forms and learns from them, but it can also be implicit or rise for other non-painterly practices as castings. Dr. Maya and Abigail moss argued I think, for instance of artists like Jeff wall or artists like Wolfgang Tillman's whose work has tirelessly demonstrated to us how photography can take up the representative and narrative strategies of painting as involved, and how it is actually able to produce material surfaces that mimic the texture of abstract painting as involved containments."-------[Isabelle Graw's Lecture: The Economic of Painting - Notes on the Vitality of a Success-Medium(2015)]
Concrete exaggerated emotional face as a symbol is a fundamental component of my works and represents the moment that memory was recorded. So you will see these emotion expressive faces appear in my previous and current attempts.
I found that whether Tilt Brush or Sculptr VR is actually a simulation of real materials in the above attempt.
When I used them for creation, I found that space and media created in this virtual space were no longer obstacles. But compared to Physical painting, the storage of paintings and the skills and touch of materials is still not enough for us in the 3D VR virtual world.
Digital technology for the development of artistic creation has provided new means and potential. Digital art computer technology and network technology, it is human rational thinking and artistic inspiration for a high degree of integration of a new comprehensive art form. Digital painting is subject to a number of art classes. With the rapid development of science and technology, modern media in changing the nature of the arts of painting and painting art production methods, it is also changing the very basis of the painting.
Further, when I used procreate (Procreate is the most powerful and intuitive digital illustration app available for iPad.) to create some digital painting, I couldn't help but consider some questions: Will digital painting technology be an essential requirement for art students in future art classes?
Do future artists need to master specific digital painting techniques to ensure that they will not hinder future painting creation? More pointedly, will digital painting replace traditional painting shortly? Even David Hockney's painting also has changed from physical form to digital form.
Procreate imitate the brush strokes of Oil painting
Duan, JX. (2021) practice [Procreate, digital painting].
Digital images always imitate physical paintings' effects; the more they imitate, the more popular they are. Like the waterlogue software, the filter effect makes it difficult for people to distinguish whether it is a painting or a digitally processed picture.
Photos processed with Waterlogue app.(2021)
And I try to use this app to "recreate" my watercolor. I grapple with this recreation from physical painting to digital painting and attempt to explore some unexpected results in this kind of experiments.
Those photos show you how the Waterlogue app processed my watercolor works.(2021)
Watercolor sketch (2021)