The
Artist
Psychedelic
art gained widespread popularity around the psychedelic music
of the 60s and 70s by such musicians as Jimi Hendrix, the
Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Velvet Underground, The
Doors, Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd. It was often seen in
concert posters, album covers, advertising, and comic books.
Psychedelic art has now become popular as the visual component
of trance, techno and progressive dance music. It is often
scene in visuals, flyers and posters at nightclubs, festivals
and other music events.
The
artwork I create could best be described as psychedelic visionary
art. It expands wide in form by embracing mysticsm, the mind-expanding
culture of the 60s and early 70s through to the psychedelic
trance scene of today.
The
pictures are created digitally and built up like an architectural
structure. They start with the creation and exploration of
a fractal, which then becomes the foundation and background
of the picture. But what is a fractal? It is a mathematical
representation of chaos - well not exactly - it is more like
a computer generated tree that just keeps branching out again
and again into infinity.
Fractals
are based on mathematical equations that never end, that is,
no matter how much you enlarge the image, there is always
the same amount of detail and a repetition of mathematically
defined shapes in the enlarged image.
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Upon
these backgrounds I then build the picture by creating the
foregrounds such as planets, trees, stars and people by using
layers. In most cases the picture has to move through several
programs before completion. After adding various textures
and materials to the image and applying the final touches
with some of the paint tools in Photoshop the picture is finally
complete.
My
interest in the arts began in the 70s when I attended college
and studied Graphic Design. I
also had a spell painting with oils using the Bob Ross method.
He was a wonderful man, close to nature and a fantastic landscape
and seascape artist and gave me a lot of inspiration which
I still use in my art today. Sadly no longer here, he brought
a unique style of oil painting to TV viewers in the US and
other countries around the world with his half hourly painting
classes. See the Bob Ross
website.
I
became interested in digital art in the late eighties and
early nineties first using the Amiga 500 computer. Although
very slow in comparison with today's machines, some of the
programs available at the time were capable of producing some
good results.
After
gaining computer, art and some photography skills, my interest
has grown where now I spend many hours creating designs that
would have been near impossible years ago.
As well as creating digital art, I also enjoy capturing digital
photos of landscapes, coastal scenes, villages, historic buildings
and monuments etc. Many of my photos are taken of the Isle
of Wight. A beautiful place I've had an association with since
I was a child.
My
work is a demonstration of how art and technology can come
together and be used to express the imagination of the artist.
Brian
Exton
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