Background on The Recycled Art Project
In 2009, I started a little side project, The Recycled Art Project. This project
started with an interest in some of my older work from 20+ years ago. Back then I was just creating, unaware of the
need for archival materials. Some of the paper from these works has completely yellowed, or is no longer
presentable. I wanted to find a way to still give this work some exposure. As a result,
I came up with The Recycled Art Project. I took these older pieces and 'recycled' them into something completely different.
In some instances, if you look at the original and recycled pieces side by side, you can see colour-based commonalities.
Standing alone, however, they are two completely different items.
For this project, I have taken images of the
original, pre-recycled pieces, and then altered them, poking, prodding, pushing, pulling. Like my landscape
paintings, they are often inspired by one little cross-section of colour on a larger plane. Sometimes I have gone back to
the same little section multiple times and reworked it in varying ways. The beauty of working with digital imagery: the possibilities
for outcome are infinite. Many of these digital paintings are made up of small squares, or rectangles. Much like in pointillism,
the eyes take these small fragments and want to make sense of it. In some instances, the image appears abstract, based entirely
on movement, energy, and colour. Other times, the resulting image is an abstracted yet recognizable landscape, sunset or lake.
Apart from the fun of this project, I decided to donate a portion of proceeds to charity,
hence the tagline: Something Cool for Your Walls, Something Cool for Humanity.