JIM GREEN

About
(b. 1947, Texas, USA)
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As a visual artist, my main focus has always been to explore the boundaries of painting through innovation and how I can extend them beyond traditional methods, applications, and techniques.  In my third year as an art major at the University of California, I was painting from an internalized train of thought, translating ideas into tangible imagery. Never having the slightest idea or mental image of a completed painting to work toward, I would start with a base image, adding and subtracting other images, marks and strokes until I a picture begins to appear. That process was problematic because in the course of searching for an image, I applied so much paint on the canvas that its surface would look dull and flat. In spite of my preference to use traditional painting as a medium, it was not the best fit for my style. 

For my final year of school, I switched to the University of Texas where I completed my BFA in Studio Art. I was continuing to try different mediums that wouldn't leave my canvas surfaces looking muddled until I happened upon liquid synthetic rubber, which is made for coating work tool handles. It was available in primary colors but wanting to mix my own colors, I ordered a gallon of clear and pigmented it with alkyd paint. The upside was that I could control the opacity and transparency depending on how it was thinned. The downside was that the thinner is chemically hot making it highly toxic in an enclosed environment. For health reason, I stopped working with it.
 
Eventually I made my move to NYC where I was working as a website designer. Using Photoshop on a daily basis, I learned how to subvert its toolset so that I could make them do what they wre not designed to do. Lacking the space in my apartment to experiment with the size format I like to work with, I began creating a series of inkjet prints titled 'Fragmente', based on work I performed in counter-intelligence for the now obsolete Army Security Agency. I located, intercepted, monitored, and transcribed fragments of information which was transmitted as encrypted code messages, which were then decoded to reveal a complete message. Using a similar process, I put together fragments of visual imagery from various sources until all the elements coalesce into a visual and aesthetic narrative. 

While a traditional painting provides tactility and holds the value of being a one-of-a-kind piece, each digital painting, minus surface texture, also holds the same value. This brings into question what exactly defines a painting, especially when so much art is being produced using today's technological and printing processes?
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