Growing up I had a variety of artistic and cultural influences. My older brothers studied creative writing and poetry, sculpture, and architecture. My own interests were in computers and mathematics. But even then computer arts were growing in the popular cultural consciousness. Conway published his Game of Life, a program that generates endless complex patterns of swarming pixels following very simple rules of pixel "birth" and "death". Mandelbrot's famous fractal art (the black "snowman" shape) also showed the limitless complexity and beauty of a simple recursive expression, and bridged these artificially produced patterns to very similar ones found in nature.

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I read an article in the mid-80's on some of the latest techniques in computer generated art, especially in creating clouds and landscapes. Again, these techniques started with very simple rules, but applied them repeatedly and recursively to create a complex or chaotic image. When I eventually got a computer of my own, I wrote a rough version of this technique, in black and white on a very low-resolution field. The result looked like a tangled fish net, or a piece of paper that had been crumpled and then uncrumpled - academically interesting, but not very eye-catching. I would revisit this program every so often, eventually extending the algorithm to include shifting and blending of colors as well as shapes.

 

In 2008, I came back to my program after having neglected it for a long time, and thought I would try creating the largest and most complex and colorful images that I could, using current computer software and hardware resources. The results were very encouraging, so I began to create some sample images on canvas, with the help of a local printer here in Austin. Unlike many computer-generated pieces, which are hard and geometric, these images often come out soft and wispy. They convey organic patterns similar to the contours of land, or the smoke and fume from a burning fire, or the mists and vapors over a morning pond. The detail and chaotic coloring create subelements and subpatterns that offer new discoveries to the viewer, making a piece new again even after the viewer has seen it many times.

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Since then I have shown and sold my work at galleries, coffee shops, salons, and restaurants, around Austin and Dallas. All of my pieces are produced in limited editions of 12. You can also find phone cases and laptop skins of my work on Gelaskins.com.

 

During COVID, I have been less active in my art work, but am looking to reinvigorate my artistic efforts. Please feel free to contact me if you would like more information about new artworks and upcoming events - looking forward to hearing from you!