“Dulce Bytes”, An Exhibit of Digital Art

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE “Dulce Bytes”, An Exhibit of Digital Art February 1-25, 2018 Kerr Arts and Cultural Center / 228 Earl Garrett / Kerrville, TX 78028 Kim Ort, Coordinator / ko@kacckerrville.com … Saturday, February 3, 2018 … Opening Reception: 2:00-4:00 p.m. / Artists’ Talk: 1:00 p.m. (All six artists will be in attendance.) SIX AUSTIN DIGITAL ARTISTS TO EXHIBIT AT KERR ARTS AND CULTURAL CENTER (Kerrville, TX)-The Kerr Arts and Cultural Center is pleased to announce Dulce Bytes, an exhibit of digital art. Digital art is a growing and explosive field. The techniques and possibilities are wide ranging, making the medium a game-changer in all facets of artistic expression. For Dulce Bytes six Austin-based digital artists are coming together to offer a sweet taste of the potential breadth and range of this discipline in an innovative and visually stunning art collective. Each artist brings a unique version of the artform to the exhibition. Leslie Kell will exhibit her digital photo collages that are printed on archival canvas. Her photographic images are digitally assembled into the patterns of her designs. As the photos are layered and manipulated, they interact to create the highlights, shadows, and contours of the new image they create. Kell’s artwork will be finished with three-dimensional enhanced framing to create a sculptural presentation. Chalda Maloff will create digital paintings using a combination of freehand electronic tablet drawing, scans of her own natural media artworks, and filters. Maloff does not use photographic processes in her work. She employs computer software to combine and synthesize various artistic effects, producing outcomes that would not be possible with any other medium. Shirley Steele has a multi-step process that involves both paint and computer programming. Steele writes the computer code to produce an animation, from which she isolates stop-action images. The images are then inkjet printed on a clear mylar support. She applies paint to the front and back of the support, variously brushing, dripping, scraping, and spattering, the idiosyncrasies of the hand in tension with the precision of the machine’s sharp lines. Charles Heppner will exhibit a selection of his Prayer Rug body of work which are intricate photographic compositions created in the digital darkroom using tree images as the basis. Each work highlights moments of experiencing the presence of a tree. For Heppner, the works are prayers of gratitude for and about trees and other objects in nature. Paul McGuire will share his artistic process that is a fusion of art and mathematics. Combining fractal algorithms with his own custom-developed computer software, his art recreates complexity as it is found in the natural world. Unlike many computer-generated artworks, which are often hard and geometric, these images evoke many natural forms such as the path of lightning through a storm or the flow of water as it shapes a hillside. The ultra-high resolution images belie the digital origins of the work, and the subelements and subpatterns offer new discoveries to the viewer, making a piece new again even after having seen it many times. Photographer Thomas Athey’s creative process is loosely modeled on the evolutionary principles of Charles Darwin and on memetics, the cultural analogue of biological evolution. Drawing on his extensive archive of personal photographs, Athey creates complex image inheritance scenarios (copies of images), applies targeted mutations to highlight desirable attributes (image edits) and enforces selection pressures (ranking and rating) in a survival-of-the-fittest workflow that ultimately determines which images are included in the finished collage and which are unceremoniously cast aside. In this context, these images can be viewed as unique, highly evolved organisms, subject to the same evolutionary forces as biological entities but free of the time constraints and random vagaries of natural selection. Chalda Maloff comments, “I am stimulated and gratified to be working alongside other Texas artists exploring the extraordinary aesthetic potential of new media.” To learn more about the participating artists please visit their individual websites at: Leslie Kell lesliekell.com kellcreative@gmail.com Chalda Maloff chalda.com cmaloff@medium-s.com Paul McGuire paulmcguireart ptmcg@austin.rr.com Shirley Steele steelestudio.com/ shirleysteele01@gmail.com Charles Heppner charlesheppner.com/ heppchas@mac.com Thomas Athey the-memeplex.com tathey@swbell.net The Kerr Arts & Cultural Center is an art center dedicated to promoting the local artist community through exhibitions, education and programs. They are located at 228 Earl Garrett Street, in the heart of downtown Kerrville, TX. Hours of operation are Wednesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. and Sunday, 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. KACC is closed on Mondays. For further information visit kacckerrville.com or call 830-895-2911. ###