Art-Science – continuing into 2021

Reading about the early 20th century artist Marcel Duchamp, that after he painted his famous painting Nude Descending a Staircase, he stopped painting to concentrate on Art-Science and to play chess. Interesting in how science became part of what he considered important as to how to create art. I am very intrigued now with the whole idea of the art-science mashup, so I am not really surprised that this concept is over one hundred years old. And in fact, a lot older when considering how it was the scientific concepts that lead us out of the Middle Ages (sometime diversity referred to as the Dark Ages) into the Renaissance period. But I digress…

Where once I avoided discussing my science background, I am now finding that this has become a source of creativity for me. I guess that is also what makes me different (unique?) in the artwork I create. Not many artists are also scientist, I just seem to be curious about different things. Experiment & play.

During the start of the COVID pandemic I completed the first of my many art-science experiments, currently focusing on investigating Quantum Mechanics. And it seems that each set of experiments is leading to another new series to investigate and further develop. Both exhilarating and exhausting. Scientific experiments are the backbone for developing new pharmaceuticals. Trial and error, learn something new, try something else, see what happens as you kick it down the road.

Truthfully, I am still not sure where all of my art-science experiments are going to lead, and as many artists have stated, for art, there are No Rules. So I will continue to plunge ahead into the new year. To prepare for this, I just received another four boxes (8-1/2 x 11″) of the Rag Metallic to create trial prints. As I wrote about earlier, regretfully what’s on the monitor is only a close approximation of what the final print looks like as there are some tonalities and contrast changes with the pigment on the Rag Metallic. So a trial print is always required. Then an evaluation as to what to tweak to obtain a print that looks similar to what’s on the monitor, which is usually my goal.

Meanwhile, I am continuing to work on what initially intrigued me about particle physics in how it explains the bending of light, while setting aside some new artwork that is the beginning of another new series (or two). Over the holidays, another AHA! moment and realized that I now have another new series of experiments to set-up, which should help solve some of the unintended results (the Observer Effect) from the last set of experiments. Sometimes solving one problem can create a new problem, another fun aspect of Quantum Mechanics.

The image above, Light-Space-Time (abstraction) 9307 has a melding of what I think is so visually interesting; the soft demarkation lines between the pools of color due to the bending of light with an ever so slight blending of the hard edges. So a bit of the old with some of the effects of the more recent experiments. Due to the nature of my experiments and the dielectric medium I am using, the colors tend toward being warmer, thus I need to tease out some smaller contrasting colder hues to give it a bit more visual balance. This is also a bit larger and complex with more things appear to be occurring. A little bit of the Charlie Brown back-n-forth in me; is it toooo busy and overwhelming or is really interesting because it is tooooo busy? Likewise, initially this artwork was developed as a vertical image, but now I see the potential as a horizontal, below (which is how the print hangs in my studio for on-going evaluations).

Final artwork is about 24 x 30″, printed on Rag Metallic, edition of 5 if you are interested.

Cheers,

Doug

____

Featured artwork, above; LSTa9307 (Quantum Elements) copyright 2020 Douglas Stockdale

____

Exhibition, Portfolio Reviews & Workshops

January 21 – 24th, 2021; Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP), EXPOSURE WEEKEND, a series of virtual portfolio reviews, and I will be on the team of available portfolio reviewers available that weekend. Sign-ups started December 1st. More information here. You might want to chose me if you would like some feedback on Project Development, Editing, Sequencing your work, Book design & layout and Publication advice.

 February 20th – March 20th 2021; Photographs’s Eye gallery, Escondido, CA, a two-person exhibition that will feature my Memory Pods series (lens-based photography) in conjunction with photographer Louise Russell. Exhibition reception February 20th, 3-7pm.

March 13-14, 20-21, 2021; Developing Your Creative Photo Book, a workshop that I am leading again in collaboration with Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP). Workshop dates are March 13 – 14th, and March 20-21st from 9am – noon PST. Four days, two consecutive weekends, a virtual workshop on Zoom, with time between sessions to develop your book dummy. Sign-up here.