Not Art

My father was an artist, I am not. This has long been my understanding. Though my father lived and died unknown to the wider world of art, he was a capable water colourist, as well as working with other media. He was skilled at painting and drawing. I never inherited any of this skill with the paintbrush or the pencil, although I was a keen amateur photographer many years ago and still like to take photographs. These days, however, I only use my ancient iPhone, which has its limitations.

I also use my skills and experience as a former professional journalist to create designs to illustrate my books and online stories. Apart from the iPhone, I use the simplest of software tools to do this. Sometimes I use carefully setup and post-edited 'artificial intelligence' images. The standard of these designs is pretty good in some cases, some not. Either way they serve to illustrate some of my written work in a simple and cost effective way.

So it was with near astonishment that I learnt that one of my digital designs was accepted for an exhibition at the Tate Modern in London.

The above is a photo of the work Culinary Magic, as exhibited at Tate Modern August 8-28 2024. Here is a closer view of the framed and mounted work.

Seeing my work displayed at one of the most popular art museums in the world, alongside some really fabulous art created by Tate staff and volunteers, didn't alter my opinion as to my artistic abilities. It did, however, make me wonder if I could continue the process and create other digital works. On this basis I have collected together a few more of my digital designs with a view to finding a home for them (if only temporary) in an exhibition. Please take a look at the following works and let me know what you think. Would any catch your eye in an exhibition and would you want to buy one for display at home?

Taylor on show

Culinary Magic

The work was created, first, with a photograph of a simple kitchen utensil but one, with a blessing or spell added to by another (unknown) artist. Hence the caption. Although I made a print of this work for the purposes of the Tate exhibition, I consider the work to be digital and have destroyed the print. This means that the work only exists 'in the cloud' and on any device it has been downloaded to. Can a digital work, with no physical expression, be considered art? I suggest that it can, am proud of this work, and the fact that it has been exhibited at the Tate. Does this make me an artist. In a way, yes, but I would hesitate to call myself an artist at any time: digital illustrator, perhaps.

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Time of Death

This work is no more and no less than a captioning exercise. Can words be art? Can humour be considered art? Well, think about Warhol, Lichtenstein, and others who have created work in which the words are the focus of the art, if not the only feature of their work. I also think that art can sometimes be taken too seriously so why not create a work that criticises, or makes fun of, one of the old masters? What do you think?

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ART NOT ART

To create this digital work, I first experimented with a generative AI computer program, in order to create a funny image out of one of the world's best loved art works. At least as far as western art is concerned. Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Johannes Vermeer, is much revered but, ever the iconoclast, I sought to reinterpret its popularity. Directing the AI to generate a series of images based on the painting but with the girl, smoking a pipe, my thought was also on another kind of artistic icon. If you recall (or look up) The Treachery of Images (La Trahison des images), the 1929 painting by Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte, you will see what I mean. I selected four of the generated images and fitted them into a Margrittesque panel and added the caption. Is this art? You tell me.

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Makes no scents

There is no AI involved with the above work. Just my skill as a photographer, my choice of typeface and colours and an example of a garden flower. All is in the choice of wording, however. Again, can words be art. Here, I have made a p lay on words taken from Shakespeare. These flowers are not roses but they have an even stronger, arguably more heavenly, scent that varieties of rosa.

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If you liked, or disliked, any of the above images, or if you have an opinion on whether these can be considered art, please feel free to use the comments section below.

Finally, here is a taster of my upcoming book Short and Sweet Too, which is a second volume of my short story collection.

Not a life saver

Thanks for reading