Originally a painter, Jack Addis moved to digital to allow more sharing. Being appreciated is good. Jack enjoys surprising and inspiring people. Regenerating them. He’s part of a nomadic gallery in Bristol, Madescapes, that aims to do just that, showing British contemporary art. There’s a lot of images around, a lot of information, and this has entered Jack’s work in the form of themes. Where his work was more about distortion, hiding original images, now the themes are leaning more towards the saturation of culture with information and images. This saturation is shown using highly saturated colors, and the digital world is often associated with bright colors.
In his distorted pictures Jack would use more colors, that helps to hide the original images and make the audience look for it. His themes develop and change, and he has started using less hues in a piece. And he does apply colors for their meanings as well, such as purple to represent a high social standing. He’s not sure if people really recognise that however. Nowadays colors, and the availability of colors, is so different to centuries ago, when many of the associations we have with colors were created. In parallel to the question if people are sensitive to the meaning of colors in the works, Jack makes a point of giving his pieces titles, to create the context and focus for himself as well his audience. Without the title, people may miss the story. Not uncommon in contemporary and especially abstract art.
Working digitally in itself isn’t necessary a challenge in terms of colors. Computers are so engrained in our life now it seems more natural even! It’s fast, there are less restrictions. The subjectivity of color is actually taken away. Jack has to delve deep into the coding to make his works. Getting the colors right on the print version, that’s more difficult.
