Philippe Benichou

The December 2009 Digital Color Artist of the Month is Philippe Benichou. Born in French occupied Algeria in 1957, his family moved to Nantes, France, when he was just a small child. Philippe comes from a family of artists and began studying painting and art history as a youth with his late mother, artist Arlette Oger. He studied at the Sorbonne University, New York University and UCLA. Philippe formally studied and was greatly encouraged by well known art educator, artist and sculptor, Francis Coelho, in San Francisco, CA. In addition to being a painter, Philippe is a successful actor, voice over artist, director and acting coach in Hollywood.

Philippe describes his work as for the most part expressive: abstract and abstract expressionist with an intense and free use of color. He uses various media to produce unusual textures, shapes, compositions and color coordination. He believes color has a primitive healing effect provided it contains and aims at harmony.

New Contemporary Artists and Galleries
The following artists registered in the last month. To view the work of an artist enter the artist's name at http://DigitalConsciousness.com To see these most recent artists go to http://DigitalConsciousness.com/new/

1. Leyla Murr. Stylistically diverse and visually powerful paintings reflect the artist's intuitive process and emotional involvement in the production of each work. Working in both total abstraction and abstracted representation, Murr imparts her distinctive color pallet and dynamic hand to a variety of subjects including geometric shapes, human figures, windswept landscapes, and still lifes.
2. Bo Davidsson. Landscapes and nature photography from Sweden.
3. Umpire Guevara Cesar. Abstract cityscapes from Belgium.
4. Danilo Verticelli. European conceptual aesthetics. Deconstructivism by getting deeply into interpretation of images and architecture. Through bright colors, smart nuances and realist subjects touched by contemporary facts and ways of live, he is able to get the observer into the painting in a very new Pop Art celebration.

Gilbert Abric, Judy Puckett, Robert Chami and Kevin Barr have added new artwork to their galleries. http://DigitalConsciousness.com/gallerylist.phtml

Artistic Interaction
Digital Consciousness promotes interaction between artists. This newsletter is for artists to let the community know about new artwork or gallery exhibits or shows. Please post your news by the 20th of the month to http://digitalconsciousness.com/newslettersubmission.phtml Additionally, an art calendar listing Southern California Art Walks, Open Studio Tours, & Art Festivals can be found at: http://nanday.com/art

Ad-free Galleries With No Commission
Artists with Digital Consciousness Gallery Service can create and edit on-line galleries from a control panel. These galleries contain no ads and are among the most prominent pages on Digital Consciousness. Artists may sell artwork from their galleries free of commission. Gallery Service requires registration and $30 a year. Registration is free and registered artists may create an Artist Page without purchasing Gallery Service. Registered Artists can use the Edit link at the bottom of their Artist Page to edit their Artist Page or to upgrade to Gallery Service.

Dan Civa

The November 2009 Digital Color Artist of the Month is Dan Civa. Dan was born in Denmark in 1939. He paints animals, people and nature in warm colors. Long stays in the Far East and kin in Sri Lanka influence his works. Glowing pictures with motifs from Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Denmark depict experiences of colorful people in everyday life.

Dan is known as the painter of 'HumanAnimals', transgenetic motifs in paintings and drawings that symbolize the combination of human beings and animals. His ideas and inspiration for the HumanAnimals comes from a deep interest in science and research.

New Contemporary Artists and Galleries
The following artists registered in the last month. To view the work of an artist enter the artist's name at http://DigitalConsciousness.com To see these most recent artists go to http://DigitalConsciousness.com/new/

1. Lynette Charlie Despanza. Soulful portraits.
2. April Kiessling. The flux and interaction between what is seen and unseen.
3. Jeanne-Marie Meyer. Map and photography collage.
4. Studio Raziel. Occult imagery.
5. Tibor Juhasz. Colored articulation of the purity and glow of passion.
6. Karen McNab. Still Life and florals from Canada.

Kevin Barr, Judy Puckett and Calico have added new artwork to their galleries. http://DigitalConsciousness.com/gallerylist.phtml

Pasadena Art Night
Open for Pasadena Art Night and continuing through January was the Pasadena Museum of California Art survey of more than one hundred twenty works drawn from the oeuvre of the celebrated painter Wayne Thiebaud. With his penchant for dazzling sunlight and high-keyed color and a gift for painterly, sensuous handling of oils and other media, Thiebaud's paintings link high art with popular culture while conveying a sunny optimism that is quintessentially Californian. Also at Pasadena Art Night along with exhibits at many other institutions and museums was Mantong and Protong at Pasadena City College. There, material never before exhibited illuminated two of the twentieth century's most unusual theories of human origins and the artists who originated them, Richard Shaver and Stanislav Szukalski .

Long Beach SoundWalk
Many art projects were on display at the 2009 Long Beach Soundwalk. Sound of Silence consisted of a guy sweeping the sidewalk with a broom. He was tethered to electronic devices and several sets of headphones worn by Soundwalk goers. When the sweeper moved, the broom sensors created eerie sounds which played through the headphones. As he swept, the people attached to him by headphone cords moved along with him.

Another one consisted of upright hollow cylinders. Each cylinder held styrofoam pieces with strings stretched over them. At the base of each assembly was a little motor which was activated by the viewers. The motor played the strings, and the sounds could be heard when one put an ear near the styrofoam. The simplest piece was water-filled plastic containers, each with a hole in the bottom, hanging over metal cans and inverted bowls. Other than a few traditional musical instruments, this was the only non-electrical piece. An art calendar listing Southern California Art Walks, Open Studio Tours, & Art Festivals can be found at: http://nanday.com/art

Owen A. Kelly

The October 2009 Digital Color Artist of the Month is Owen Kelly. Owen built the Mutant Vehicle Polaroid Photo Booth at Burning Man 2009. It was a large outdoor photo studio for Mutant Vehicles. Mutant Vehicles, or art cars, are great creative achievements. They are vehicles and are driven like cars or trucks or carts or pulled like trailers, but they don't look at all like their original form. They even go through a jury like process by the festival which only licenses ones which are sufficiently mutated. Photo Booth greeters mingled with the artist and crew of each creation before it was photographed. They took time to appreciate the many many details in each art car. Next, a countdown to the opening of the shutter: 3, 2, 1 . . . open. The essence of each of the artists and their work then emerged in the long held poses they struck. Owen then exposed the last remaining Polaroid film of its type.

The Booth was extra large and grand. Huge black tarps were affixed to the vertical surface of a 4 story climbable scaffold. White fabrics were laced together and strung from cables that ran from the top of the scaffold to poles taller than telephone poles. Even vehicles with tall masts fit under this canopy. It was oriented to put the vehicles in the best light during the day and illuminated at night. The Booth was in its full undamaged glory for only a day or so. An antenna from a vehicle tore the canopy and then winds did further damage overnight. The damage was expected, as it was an integral part of its post-apocalyptic vintage-carne poster look.

The 2010 Mutant Vehicle Polaroid Booth is currently looking for sponsors aiming to build a little bigger next year -- 50 feet high and 80 feet wide. Plans are for a system scaffold that has greater rigidity and strength, and also a faster assembly and breakdown. There will be four different teams: one for construction, one for tear down, one for photography and one for greeting, processing and promotion.

Illuminated and Climbable Metal Sculptures
Also at the festival were a great number of climbable metal sculptures. Mentioned here are the Natural Selection Dome built by Jessue, the Amethyst Portal by Harlan, the Rocketship, the Slide and the Portal of Evolution. The Natural Selection Dome was a big uncovered steel geodesic dome. The struts averaged about 5 feet and were painted many different colors. The whole thing was lit with black lights from a dozen columns mounted around it. People climbed on it day and night for a week. The slope of the climb lessened closer to the top. The views were great, of the playa and of the other climbers. They hung on it, rightside up and upside down, from their feet, from silk and from ropes.

The Amethyst Portal was an indigo stellated dodecahedron constructed of wood and steel with an open interior space. Inside it was a subsonic sound device that emitted the deep frequencies. The Raygun Gothic Rocketship was an immersive large-scale installation consisting of a 40 foot tall metal rocketship and scaffold walkway. People climbed into the rocket and explored its interior chambers. The ship was set to launch. At launch time, fireworks went off and then there were plasma gas explosions of most unusual and vivid violets and greens. Then there was a fire and the launch was aborted. The astronaut jumped out of the ship onto the scaffold. He shot so many fireworks out of all parts of his body, front and back, legs and arms that the air about him was completely full of fire and color. He kept it up as he did somersaults down the walkway. The Slide, just like the name suggests, a slide, may have been the only thing bigger than the Photo Booth. Thousands of people climbed it and slid down, ten or more at a time. The Portal of Evolution was also big. It was formed with petal like steel plates from which sprung fallopian tubes and ovaries. Emerging from the top was a kinetic butterfly on which one could perch.

Autumn Lights LA
Autumn Lights LA 09 was a one day, 7pm-1am, event. Next year it will be expanded to a 3 day weekend event. It was at Pershing Square for the first time. The backdrop of skyscrapers in the midst of a revitalized re-aestheticized downtown LA was spectacular. It was like the Festival of Lights in Berlin and White Nights in St. Petersburg. A Manifestation of Collective Subconscious, a geodesic non-dome steel and canvas assembly by Collabo was the focal target of three projections. Sean Sobczak displayed an illuminated dragonfly and caterpillar sculpture. There was a man sized fish and balancing designs painted on a black lit carpet that took the light so perfectly it looked like illuminated sculpture. Newaje had advanced technology laser walls and fans visible across the entire square. Silvia Rigon projected Dipsy-Doodle, hand-drawn animation exploring the growth and emergence of organic patterns. A multi-colored glow radiated from lights moving under a small cargo parachute covered dome. The parachute was like semi-transparent silk.

Frogtown Art Walk
The artists of Elysian Valley (Frogtown) displayed the creativity and talent that flourishes in the industrial buildings along the LA River. Visitors wandered along the river led by glowing arrows, the sound of music and a trail of flickering lanterns. Steve Graziani had a group of steel sculptures in the from a creatures with large cubical heads. He also displayed wall and functional sculptures and will create unique pieces that fit any contemporary setting. He opened his sculpting studio in 2005 after a film industry career. The Michael McCall photo studio let people see and use its makeup and costume rooms. Gallery Frogtown was open with its many rooms turned into galleries. The living skyscraper works exuded a softening energy. A terrific list of Southern California Art Walks, Open Studio Tours & Art Festivals like these can be found at: http://DigitalConsciousness.net/directory/artcalendar.php See you there.

New Contemporary Artists and Galleries
The following artists registered in the last month. To view the work of an artist enter the artist's name at http://DigitalConsciousness.com To see these most recent artists go to http://DigitalConsciousness.com/new/

1. Maria Beatrice. Polymer dolls and sculptures.
2. Jonhomer. Geometric shapes from architecture and demonstrates a mechanical intuition.
3. Robert Thomas. Realistic portraits and characters.
4. Lise Boucher. Digital orbs.
5. Philippe Benichou. Color coordinated for primitive healing.
6. Owen A Kelly. The Mutant Vehicle Polaroid Photo Booth.

Donna C. Willis, Moustafa Al Hatter, Jaff Seijas, Judy Puckett and Kevin Barr have added new artwork to their galleries. http://DigitalConsciousness.com/gallerylist.phtml

Joan Myerson Shrager

The September 2009 Digital Color Artist of the Month is Joan Myerson Shrager. She has been a visual artist for over 30 years, working in acrylics, pastels, charcoal and other conventional media. In the last 10 years she has worked exclusively on the computer creating all of her paintings using complex software and then printing the work on fine art papers.

Shrager has exhibited in more than 75 juried, invitational and solo exhibitions. Her digital work is in the permanent collection of the University of Pennsylvania on exhibit at the Graduate School of Education. She is included in two texts printed by Harcourt Press and Ferguson Publishing illustrating digital art. Most recently her digital prints were shown at GFA, a Los Angeles gallery. She is also featured on many digital art web sites.

New Contemporary Artists and Galleries
The following artists registered in the last month. To view the work of an artist enter the artist's name at http://DigitalConsciousness.com To see these most recent artists go to http://DigitalConsciousness.com/new/

1. Quan La Ba. Palette knife portraits from Vietnam.
2. S.K. Rajasekar. Abstract depictions of the space above the earth.
3. Ramesh Kher. Mixed media abstracts from India.
4. Samuel Monnier. Algorithmic art, patterns so complex that they could never have been imagined.
5. Moira Coon. Steampunk jewelry and frippery adornments.
6. Gabor Kruzsely. Stylized portraits from Hungary.
7. Adrian Sam. Art Deco nightscapes.
8. George Transcender. Socially conscious art.
9. Maja Sipilovic. Figurative drawing.
10. Mahenda Bhatt. Landscapes from Inida.
11. Igor Tarantul. Relief, three dimensional engraving and gold casting inlay.

Jean Francois Muller, Kevin Barr, Judy Puckett and Jaff Seijas have added new artwork to their galleries. http://DigitalConsciousness.com/gallerylist.phtml

Evolution a Tangled Bank
The following artwork is being installed at the 2009 Black Rock Arts Festival, one of the most fascinating and least understood phenomena of our time. For more, use the Burning Man category of the Internet Art Directory. http://DigitalConsciousness.net/directory/brc.phtml

1. 2:22 Amethyst Portal. A subsonic non-linear dynamic analog feedback device that produces frequencies in the range of brain waves. It is housed in an indigo colored 17 foot high stellated dodecahedron.
2. Vishnu's Dream. Vishnu reclines on a bed formed by the thousand-headed serpent Shesha and dreams the world into existence as a lotus flower that blossoms from his navel. The sculpture melds whirling images of the playa scene with live infrared images of visitors in a dark chamber.
3. Cubatron L5. A 3D LED light sculpture. It consists of 5 cubes, each made up of 1000 lights within an 8x8x8ft open aluminum frame, all on top of a 5ft high steel pipe platform.
4. Fire Of Fires. Encased in thirty-two vertical feet of clear polycarbonate sheeting, nine gas lamps come alive as a tornado of flame.
5. Incunabulum. Our rational minds tell us that we are an inconsequential part of a vast, uncaring universe; yet, we know, in another sense, that we are responsible for creating our own universe and that nothing exists outside our own experience.
6. Luminous Passage. Large flower-shaped light sculptures, ten on each side. The design of each flower-lamp becomes progressively more complex and a more vibrant and visually evolved flower form.
7. H.E.Ai.D. A collaborative, generative experience that culminates in awakening the sentience of a Human Energized Artificial intelligence Device.
8. Burninator GRID. A fire art installation consisting of a closely packed grid of large flame towers.
9. Triassic Heron. A large modular sculpture, part prehistoric bird and part oil derrick. At night its wings move with fire, illuminating the skeletal structure.

Jaff Seijas

The August 2009 Digital Color Artist of the Month is Jaff Seijas. Jaff works on paper and canvas. His paintings and drawings are products of a rich and unique imagination in pursuit of self-actualization. He currently resides in Paris, France, Santa Fe, New Mexico and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Jeff studied at the Atlanta College of Art and with Dutch artist Nan Hoover & William VanHettinga. He has had gallery showings since 1970. His work has been shown in New Jersey, Georgia, Oregon, Florida, the Carolinas, California and New Mexico. Also in Amsterdam, Munich and Paris. His Secret Lives Scrapbooks series, Aspects of the Masculine was exhibited at Gallery Nicholas Flamel in Paris this year.

New Contemporary Artists and Galleries
The following artists registered in the last month. To view the work of an artist enter the artist's name at http://DigitalConsciousness.com To see these most recent artists go to http://DigitalConsciousness.com/new/

1. Jason Jenkins. Large scale dark deep thought surrealism.
2. Debra Bretton Robinson. Acrylics on canvas and collage on wood.
3. Jonathon Baker. Art pirate.
4. d.a.gordon dart. Contemporary American Primitive, illustrator and sculptor.
5. Nabakishore Chanda. Spontaneous expression of creative impulse.
6. Franco Anselmi. Abstract animals from Italy.

Eva Gyorffy, Bob Dornberg, Donna C. Willis, Judy Puckett and Kevin Barr have added new artwork to their galleries. http://DigitalConsciousness.com/gallerylist.phtml

Southern California Art Calendar
Summer is a rich time filled with among other marvelous events, the Santa Barbara Solstice parade, Gallery Night Out (a new incarnation of the Miracle Mile Artwalk) the Laguna Beach Artwalk, the Sawdust Festival and the Pasadena Chalk Festival.

At the Pasadena Chalk Festival, large, beautiful, temporary artworks are created in chalk on the pavement. Some are original pieces, and others are reproductions of works such as famous paintings. Each artist created a smaller work on canvas, maybe a foot square, which was generally (but not always) a miniature version of the sidewalk chalk work. One artist, whose chalk creation was a reproduction of the Let It Be album cover, had a set of four minis at silent auction. Ringo's portrait was only bringing in about half as much as the other Beatles'.

A terrific list of Southern California Art Walks, Open Studio Tours, & Art Festivals can be found at: http://DigitalConsciousness.net/directory/artcalendar.php See you there.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
At the Huntington, the American galleries have been expanded and completely reinstalled. There was even a new room with bold abstracts, quite unexpected for the Huntington. A girl was overheard critiquing a huge abstract Frankenthaler to her father: "That is not art!" The giant stinky flower (Amorphophallus titanum) had bloomed in the Huntington's conservatory a few weeks earlier. This was the third blooming ever at the Huntington, and one of a small number ever in the country.

Ad-free Galleries With No Commission
Artists with Digital Consciousness Gallery Service can create and edit on-line galleries from a control panel. These galleries contain no ads and are among the most prominent pages on Digital Consciousness. Artists may sell artwork from their galleries free of commission. Gallery Service requires registration and $30 a year. Registration is free and registered artists may create an Artist Page without purchasing Gallery Service. Registered Artists can use the Edit link at the bottom of their Artist Page to edit their Artist Page or to upgrade to Gallery Service.

Eva Gyorffy

The July 2009 Digital Color Artist of the Month is Eva Gyorffy. Eva was born in 1931 in Arad, Romania. She studied painting at the University of Fine Arts in Cluj, Romania. The art of Eva Gyorffy is expressionistic with signs of symbolism. Her portraits have a psychological content, and open up a deeper layer. Since she began working digitally in 1997, her work has become more colorful, without losing pictorial sensibility. One of her most appreciated experiences is redesigning oil paintings in the computer and giving them several different new expressions.

Works of Eva Gyorffy have been exhibited since 1957 at shows in Romania, the Netherlands, Hungary, Germany, Yugoslavia, and Italy. Also in museums in Arad and Timisoara, art books, television broadcasts and private collections throughout Europe, Israel, and North America. She illustrates the Hungarian paper of Arad and is the leading member of the Arad section of the Romanian Art Foundation and a member of the Hungarian Art Foundation.

New Contemporary Artists and Galleries
The following artists registered in the last month. To view the work of an artist enter the artist's name at http://DigitalConsciousness.com To see these most recent artists go to http://DigitalConsciousness.com/new/

1. Mimmo Alfarone. Chalk pastel on wood.
2. Gregory Burke. Animals being seen as human.
3. Menachem Yaffe. Stability in a disordered world, and a love of color from Jerusalem.
4. Clint Simmons. Mystical qualities that underlie photographs.
5. Maria Cristina Faleroni. Semi-abstract figures from Argentina.
6. Sahar Aljajeh. Abstract still life from Syria.

Bob Dornberg and Judy Arline Puckett have added new artwork to their galleries. http://DigitalConsciousness.com/gallerylist.phtml

Bob Dornberg

The June 2009 Digital Color Artist of the Month is Bob Dornberg. Dornberg was born in Los Angeles in 1940. He and his twin brother, Ken, had painted with their dad since an early age. Dornberg was inspired by Rempel in high school to explore juxtaposition, and by Elgart and Amato at UCLA to paint anything and to do it a lot. Over the last 12 years he has produced over 950 oil paintings. Images of his work appear on websites of poetry, in printed publications and on book covers.

His paintings develop composition through relations of shapes, dark and light patterns, rhythm and color relations. His subjects are slices of life development after Degas, Diebenkorn, Vuillard and Monet.

New Contemporary Artists and Galleries
The following artists registered in the last month. To view the work of an artist enter the artist's name at http://DigitalConsciousness.com To see these most recent artists go to http://DigitalConsciousness.com/new/

1. Moira Buchanan. Explores personal interaction with the painting medium. She constantly adds and subtracts oil paint on the surface, whilst incorporating organic and figurative matter. This act of destruction and creation creates a paradox which captures the artist's subconscious and psyche.
2. Meg MacKenzie. An emerging photographer for a few years now. She studied art at York University.
3. Sajjad Ahmed. A visual artist living and working in Pakistan. He graduated from Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, Pakistan in 2007. In the short time of two years, his work has become sought after by international curators, institutions and art buyers.
4. Tom Repasky. A pioneer in digital fine art with a surrealist orientation. He has been producing works of intricate detail and thought provoking composition since 1995
5. Dutchartistjelke van Beekveld. Creator from the new art style -- spacingart. Born Eindhoven in the Netherlands province of North Brabant, he is an industrial and art academy trained painter

Eugene Becker, Judy Puckett, Joseph DiSipio, Calico, Kevin Barr, David Derr and Gilbert Abric have added new artwork to their galleries. http://DigitalConsciousness.com/gallerylist.phtml

My uncle John died this month. An epitaph:

Which of the two, when God and John meet,
Will occupy—you ask—the judgment seat?
Sure, our old friend—each one of us replies—
Will justly dominate the Grand Assize:
He’ll seize the scepter and ascend the throne,
Claim the Almightys thunder for his own,
Trump the Last Trump, and the Last Post postpone,
Then, if his strong prerogative extends
To passing sentence on his sinful friends,
Thus shall we supplicate at Heaven’s high bar:
Be merciful! You made us what we are;
Our jokes, our joys, our hopes, our hatreds too,
The outrageous things we do, or want to do—
How much of all of them we owe to you!
Send us to Hell or Heaven or where you will,
Promise us only you’ll be with us still:
Heaven, without you, would be too dull to bear,
And Hell will not be Hell if you are there.