make

By combining the digital with the analog, UNT Allum Jeff Elrod represents a forward movement in contemporary modernist painting. By beginning with compositions in pixels that are then projected and painted on canvas, Elrod draws attention to the similarities of these two opposite mediums. These frustrated, often dissociative, marks lend a feeling of chaos, but are rendered in such a way as to feel completely controlled. Stark palates, often just two colors, help to keep the message clear. On the surface painting by pixel — with its seemingly endless spectrum of colors, sizes, and most notably the ability to roll back time to an earlier composition — may seem like the ultimate in unlimited, uninhibited freedom. But that freedom, while certainly expanded with more recent advances in hardware and software, is very limited and would be especially 12 years ago, when Elrod first started experimenting with these compositions.

At its core, starting out on the computer is limited severely by hardware specifications. As files expand in size and complexity, performance may suffer. This may not be a problem with more advanced computers in the present, but it is something that shines through brilliantly in Elrod’s earlier work. The limitations of the digital aspect become especially visible in the pieces Pong and Great.

In Pong, clean and mechanical lines are juxtaposed with those created with the hand and computer mouse. Though consisting merely of the colors black and white, two straight lines, and a square ‘ball,’ the visual language of pong is instantly recognizable in the composition. These ‘hand-made’ lines, while still taking on a certain mechanical quality, possess that essence of the digital that can never quite be emulated — the lines ever so slightly straitened to fit the pixels, the slight change in direction created when the mouse must be picked up and brought to the top of the mouse pad again. At first they may appear as ‘tracers’ of the ball in the games in action on the screen. But as they cross not only thru the various game boards, but the essential elements themselves, it begins to draw attention to the human interaction with the medium. The not-so-perfect movements made by the user that are then processed and abstracted to their essential changes on the X and Y coordinates which the paddles in the game dutifully execute. This imperfect contact, constantly flighting the constraints given by the original programmer, is the human factor that is simultaneously resisted and required by the program in order to function.

Great on the other hand, quite literally draws parallels between physical communication and that of the computer. Digital and analog communications typically employ specialized mediums — the digital with its pixels and typefaces, and the analog with the personalized touch of the pen and the individual’s handwriting. Elrod chooses to translate the nimble, organic, and precise uncials of handwriting to the fat-palmed, mechanical, and constraint process of drawing digitally with the computer mouse. Again the essence of human contact with the machine is brought into the open and explored as he tries to communicate through a second layer of abstraction between his thoughts and his message. As such aggregation occurs, the abstraction of thought is made apparent as he struggles to make recognizable marks to communicate.

This speaks nothing of the second layer of all Elrod’s work, the conversion from digital back to the analog form of painting. With his projector, masking tape, and paint, Elrod faithfully executes his digital creations on the canvas. In doing so, only the similarities between the two substrates remain. There is a conscious limitation in the color palette which serves to both flatten the work and give a stark virtual z-axis with the use of contrast. Even in some of the later pieces that start to use textual elements and overlapping, the process of taking an idea that would normally serve to trick the eye into believing in the space and consciously flattening it with the brush calls attention to the trick. This calls into question the very idea of simulated space.

By placing two entirely opposite mediums together in the creative process, Jeff Elrod is able to bring out the most essential properties that are shared by the two. This marriage serves to further the viewers understanding of the inherent elements of each.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 2:59 pm and is filed under alumni. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.