The first painting in my Staring at Screens series is down, several more to go.

Acrylic on canvas
2009

Here is the original photo, doctored in Photoshop for exposure/saturation to create the painting:

My digital camera has been dying a slow death since the summer of 2008. Finally, back in March 2009 I couldn’t get it to come up at all (I have since purchased a new one); it would only take blurry pictures that look like analog television signals. But it kind of works out because I already had an idea to work with a series of images exactly like this and was wondering how I’d find source material without a TV set.

This project is about un-pixelating the screens we stare at all day: computer (including internet, email, video, social media), cell phone, TV, bank ATMs, post office, touch screens credit card payment at the grocery store/convenience store/big box stores, etc. The addiction, the relief one feels when pulling the eyes away, the awareness of ubiquity. It’s akin to what I mentally dubbed in Texas “air conditioned bliss.” It’s the same feeling, only visually, that you get when you step into hot, hot summer-baked air and bright sun outside from working in a cool, even chilly, climate and light-controlled building all day long. It’s about the invigoration resulting from discomfort, or from a mere change from “comfort” and “stability” stepping into uncontrollable elements.