Painting and sculpture are the backbone of the art world, from cave paintings to modern abstract painters. Thomas Lisle is fascinated by the act of the individual, a human, painting something and the expression of their thoughts and feelings in a visual language, in a direct physical way ; it's magical. 5-year-olds can paint and sculpt; it's so easy to express something about your life, being alive, the pleasure of being in the moment.
Exploring, understanding and developing abstract painting is fundamental to Lisle's artworks. In the 1880s, or whenever photography first gained popularity, it's enthusiasts believed it would replace painting, the same sentiments are expressed in the digital art world today. Painting at its most basic level is the human individuals act of mark and image making.
Digital image manufacture makes making all sorts of complex looking images more accessible, artists can sculpt things, and artists like David Hockney paint things digitally. The real possibilities of painting in the digital age are that it can be in 3D and time-based. Time-based painting existed before digital art in the form of frame-by-frame drawn animations, but digital technology allows for much greater possibilities and speeds up the process. Unfortunately, it's really not easy to make time-based paintings with liquid simulations, and free software like Blender offers liquid simulation.
Lisle was first interested in the idea of time-based electronic abstract painting in the early 1980 and was the first person to developed a technique to make images that looked like paintings. Today its called Glitch. But Lisle realised that glitch while visually interesting had none of the plasticity of painting, and started on a path to discover what computers could offer. Back in the 1990s the options were limited. Lisle is not a programmer as such, he's doesnt write the code that makes liquid simulations, or painting software but he does some basic coding with the tools others have built to turn his brush strokes into time-based paintings. While glitch imagery is now pervasive in the world of moving image, and graphics, you can see it also has influenced painting in some forms of abstraction. Time-based painting when it becomes more easy to make will also have repercussions outside of the art world as it will be used to suggest creativity in car ads for example. AI will never replace humans for me when it comes to painting.
Lisle is trying to make time-based digital art that reflects his physical paintings, which in turn sit inside the visual concerns of modern abstract expressionist painters of today. Time-based paintings give colour, forms, and composition a narrative, that is impossible in static images, its dynamic painting, and that in its way is quite revolutionary and opens up new horizons for painting.
