Art That Does Compute

Illawarra Mercury

Saturday March 4, 2006

with KILMENY ADIE

A photographer's experimentation with a computer program a decade ago has resulted in an exhibition with a difference.

Wollongong's Andrew Netherwood opened his exhibition Lighting the Inner Journey at Project Contemporary Artspace last night.

The exhibition features large format digitally created images on inkjet paper and canvas, large format backlit display transparencies and a number of colour and black and white photographs.

The display is the realisation of a dream for Netherwood who has long imagined finding a space to display the transparencies and his digital images.

His creation of the latter dates back to days as a photographer when he experimented with an early version of Photoshop to retouch his work.

"Then I discovered there is all these other wonderful tools in there that most people just used for photo retouching," Netherwood says.

"But if you took them to the max, you got all these weird and wonderful effects coming out of Photoshop.

"Then there's the filters you can buy specifically for doing textures of other effects.

"Again if you push the boundaries of those things you get some interesting images coming out of that manipulation."

By experimenting with the computer program, and others like it, Netherwood created a collection of digital images which just needed printing and mounting for the exhibition.

The images are diverse and capture the eye in different ways as you move across the gallery space.

"Some are from Photoshop and some are from Illustrator so there are different starting points," Netherwood explains.

"The programs produce different kinds of images and I happen to like both.

"The Photoshop ones are the more traditionally painterly ones whereas the ones from Illustrator are relatively flat; that's the one people do their graphic design in.

"I'm happy to play with what's in there to produce what I think is artwork."

A multimedia and web designer at the University of Wollongong, Netherwood says he tries to find a balance between his job that pays the bills and the art that gives him immense pleasure.

"My aim is to do three-and-a-half days paid work but it doesn't always work like that," he says.

"I consider myself very lucky in that I live in Wollongong, which is a wonderful place to live, and am be able to have some control over my own time.

"To do art some of the time is something I really enjoy in having this lifestyle."

Netherwood says at the end of this exhibition, on March 12, he was planning to look into exhibiting some of the 57 works in Sydney to expand his creative reach.

Lighting the Inner Journey is at Project Contemporary Artspace, 255 Keira St, Wollongong.

© 2006 Illawarra Mercury

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