My path to visual art flowered out of a desire to digitally illuminate text in the way William Blake harnessed the printing press to illuminate text. Yet the skill I developed came to transcend my original aim. I have not at all lost interest in combining text and imagery. That will always be a vital part of what I do; however, I have evolved as a visual artist to the point where I feel confident in my ability to create purely visual works. More specifically, I have confidence in my ability to take a preexistent image, tap into its resonant core, and cascade an interlaced set of images dramatizing and celebrating that core. To me this is a poetic process, an exercise in abstract dramaturgy. Of course, it requires a root image I love, a root image that beckons me. Marco Guzman’s images truly draw me in. Here is an animation rooted in his Chef des voyous, mauvais sujet, poète du cul. I call the animation Dream Notation because its creation had the feeling of notating a dream.
Animation duration: 25.6 seconds, before looping.
Peter Schmideg