ARTIST STATEMENT
When I began my work as an artist after retiring from a career as an urban designer, I was looking for an opportunity to mesh my love of photography with my interest in painting and drawing in a way that could incorporate the computer as another tool in the process.
I begin with a digital image. I alter the photograph in the computer, cropping, resizing and manipulating color. By blending pixel color I “paint” the image digitally. This allows me to create a new interpretation of the scene. This image is printed on acid-free vellum paper. I then hand-color with pastel to achieve the final result.
My work is an exploration… seeking new ways to experience the familiar, from patterns in nature’s varied palette to the same in man-made objects. I look for simple relationships within more complex settings. By emphasizing color and mass and de-emphasizing detail, I look for new emotional interpretations to the “moment in time” nature of a photograph.
Bob Ballou