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Digital Art


I wanted to look at 3 different artists that work digitally, i felt it gave me a better understanding of how digital art can be used...

Julian Opie

Opie was born in London in 1958 he graduated in 1982 from Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a visual artist of the New British Sculpture movement, a name given to the work of a group of artists, sculptors and installation artists who began to exhibit together in London, England, in the early 1980s. 

On his website the first thing that really caught my eye was his paintings section.

The figures he paints are created by thick black outlines and filled in with solid areas of flat color. They look very minimal but also remind me of pop art. I like how simple they are, but they still read as people. 


Paint on overlaid aluminium panel
190 x 156 cm
Beach Head




I then came across this album cover he made for Blur


And i loved it, i looked more at his page where he made portraits in this style. 

Muliati, shop assistant, 2002. Julian Opie (b. 1958). Vinyl on wooden stretcher, 192 x 154.3 cm. Collection of the artist.

Catherine, mother. 2001
I find it interesting that they are all drawn with little eyes, two dots as a nose, a long upper line and shorter lower line as a mouth. They all have identical facial expressions and they dont seem to show any type of emotion.

I actually found a tutorial on you tube on how to make your own Julian Opie style portrait. 







Orla Kiely

Kiely is an Irish fashion designer based in London. She began her career designing hats, and moved on to design digitally printed work on handbags, home decor items kitchenware, clothes cars and more. 







Her work is very clean and graphic, it never seems like anything to out there. Her inspiration is mid century clothes and decor.  I find this very interesting, digital printed patterns is something i have never thought about, but i enjoy to look at good design. for my surface pattern unit i have been looking at making my own patterns and i decided to use a website called red bubble to see what my patterns would look like on objects.


I think it is so interesting how something can look so different printed. I think i will try this out in my surface pattern sketch book by looking at more mid century prints. 



David Carson



David Carson is a graphic designer best known for his magazine designs in Ray Gun, for his use of experimental typography.







David Carson was one of the typographers i look at last year. His work twists and distorts type to the point where they are almost illegible, turning them into amazing pieces of art that use type as the medium. 


Design wise i find his work very attractive. I think i also have a big connection with this because of my age, as an early 90's child, music, games and films were a big part of my up bringing, it was all about CD / games covers,posters and magazines! And almost all of the bands i liked and the posters covering my walls were this style of typography.

I tried this out last year but thought i would give it another little go while i felt inspired, using photo shop - it was a lot easier now having more experience with the soft wear.
























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