AR-201 Fall 2023: Week 14 Research Assignment

For this week’s artist, I chose Robert W. McGregor. Robert was born in St Petersburg Florida in 1963 and is a primarily self taught visual artist! Along with creating digital art, Robert is also an accomplished writer, musician, and software engineer fluent in more than 7 different programming languages! He is a man of many talents, I think all of these things are amazing. Circling back to the digital images he relates, he has been creating using the freeware program POV-Ray for over fourteen years! In the early 1990’s, Robert found it a hobby to write 3D modeling and rendering software, but it intrigued him so much that he was a part of many books for several different publishing companies like Sam’s Publishing, Macmillan Computer Publishing, and Que Publishing. After all of this, early images of 3D rendered fractals began to catch his interest, so he started dabbling with computer graphics! Ever since then he has been creating. Robert has been exhibiting his work since 2004 and has received over 20 visual arts awards! he still resides in Florida, where he enjoys fine woodworking, playing guitar, writing and recording music with his band, and playing World of Warcraft! I have taken a bit of an interest in self taught artists recently because it is so inspiring to see how others have taken these things that they find as hobbies, and then later on turn it into a whole career! It becomes something that is fruitful but also something they enjoy and are very good at as well! His work in particular drew me in because it gave more of a vintage feel which I found to like a lot. Going back too when he started creating his work in 2004, his work almost gave me a 2000’s vibe, reminded me of pieces of art I would have seen back then which I thought was very cool. I love how art can take you to a different place when looking at it! I’ve linked his website down below, I think his career and everything that he has going for himself is very impressive!