Week 5 Research Assignment - Reagan Franzoni

The artist I chose for week 5 from the Museum of Computer Art is Pavel Melnichuk. He is a digital artist from Ukraine specializing in digital painting combined with using actual paintings and photographed textures from digital brush tools. Pavel’s passion for digital art began with color photography and imaging. He is inspired by digital technology that combines art with science. This process allows him to use self-expression through digital tools and techniques. He believes digital processing is an experience of the 21st century that changes stereotypes, harmony, and transformations of the mysteries in the world. Pavel Melnichuk creates his designs using a Wacom tablet to utilize Adobe Photoshop’s digital brushes to create his combination of paintings with photographed textures digitally from scratch. Melnichuk’s designs are about himself and his reflection of what still-life and abstraction mean to him. When looking at his work, he often asks himself “Is it me?” This is a way for him to discover the meaning of living life and the world’s reality.

The image I chose from Pavel Melnichuk’s collection of digital paintings is called “Childhood Dream” and is a very simple and colorful painting that reflects his use of digital textures and realistic paintings. Based on the name of this painting, I am guessing this piece is about Melnichuk’s reflection on what it means to use creativity as a child. The painting has no image, so you have to think about its meaning through the colors and brush strokes. This painting is messy, demonstrating the technique of having freedom of creativity as a child to let the brush do its own thing. Every child’s dream is to do art however they like and be messy, and this image examines the techniques children use to create their unique art. I chose this image because I really like the dimensions of the brush strokes and the use of warmer colors on top of the cool colors to create depth in the painting. I like how the strokes of the brush almost create a tear in the canvas with shadowing. This also reflects the idea of letting the brush do what it wants, even if that means tearing the painting and using messiness skills to create the uniqueness of art. 

There is no actual link to his website, but this is the MOCA link:

https://moca.virtual.museum/melnichuk/melnichuk01.htm

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