TERRY ANDERSON’S WORK BRIGHTENS UP GWC GALLERY. Western Sun photo by Alexander Strada
By Alexander Strada
Western Sun staff writer
Can digital art, art created using graphic imaging software, be fine art or is it restricted to the realm of commercial art?
Thursday, Sept. 22, at 7 p.m., the Golden West College Fine Arts Gallery will host “Light Waves – Digital Images As Fine Art,” showing pieces from local Huntington Beach artist Terry Anderson in an attempt to answer that question.
“I see the computer as a tool, like a paintbrush, I do not see it necessarily as any different,” Golden West Fine Arts Gallery Curator Darrell Ebert explains.
“It’s the way the artist uses that tool to create his image, and I think that’s what’s important here.”
Looking through the gallery, it quickly becomes clear that digital art certainly can be much more than mere commercial art.
Organized into several series in which the artist followed a specific theme for each, it is obvious how much work and creativity went into the pieces.
Each series is composed of a few poster-sized printouts of computer-generated, photo-realistic images.
The images are highly abstract, with lots of vivid colors and patterns that contain very fine detail, which you can spend a lot of time lost in.
There’s more to the exhibit than just pictures. Hung around the middle of the room at varying angles, five floor-to-ceiling panes of colored plastic provide a unique view not only of the images behind them, but also the reflections of other images from around the room, which overlap to create an almost three-dimensional effect.
The opening reception for the gallery is Thursday night, Sept. 22, and will remain open until Oct. 13.
“Computers allow you to not only discover and explore, but actually create images that could never be imagined, and would be impossible to accomplish, by any other means,” reads Anderson’s statement, posted at the entrance to the gallery.
“It is this discovery and exploration that I find exciting.”
