Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.
Frank Zappa

I recently received the latest issue of the Corel Painter newsletter, (free to anyone who signs up on the Corel website), which contains an opinion piece by John Derry in which he discusses whether or not digitally created work should be considered real “Art”. There is no doubt that a prejudice exists against digitally created artwork, the example he begins his article with, a local art show not allowing entry of a digitally created piece is pretty common. Seeing as how Derry has worked with the Painter people since the get go, and even refers to himself as, “one of the fathers of Painter,” it’s not exactly a shock to hear which side of the argument he comes down on.

As for myself I can’t believe that anyone is still holding on to the outdated opinion that digital work cannot qualify as “real” art simply because of the media choice used to create it. As Derry points out the discussion is not one of defining what art is, but rather whether using digital media automatically disqualifies the work. Certainly you could wrangle over the merits of a particular piece and its qualifications, but to discount the genre as a whole, simply because the media is new, or different from long established methods of expression, is ridiculous. I know that part of the problem for some is that there are perceived shortcuts available to the digital artist that aren’t available in say, traditional oil painting, at least as most people, (especially non-artists), picture it. If this truly is cause for rejection however, then I would assume that we should change the status of all the paintings whose creation was aided by modern innovations like the camera lucida or acylic paint. This doesn’t mean of course that all digital work is necessarily “Art” any more than all traditionally crafted work is. Trash is trash no matter the high brow lineage of the materials used in its creation.

I think, as Derry points out, the better way of approaching the discussion is to ask what qualifies any work to be considered “Art.” What is the purpose of artistic expression? While that discussion dances along the edge of the “what is art,” black hole, I think anyone who makes an honest attempt to understand why we are compelled to create and experience art could not possibly exclude a form of expression that can connect the creator with the viewer so successfully.


You can read John Derry’s article here.