In the last week, I've been to a couple of shows/events that have dealt with the relationship of painting to digital technologies (including photography): the show and panel discussion "Facing the Screen" at the University of Toronto, and the exhibition "Beautiful Fictions" at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

I should have blogged sooner about my response to these exhibitions, but painting has been (and is) consuming me these days. But I don't want to forget some of the key ideas that sparked my interest. So for today, I'll begin with a brief mish mash of some of the ideas from the "Facing the Screen" exhibition.

At the show's panel discussion, artist Michel Daigneault spoke of the screen as a "double skin" which can be penetrated through details of the image to expose the first skin, ie. the paint. My work has always emphasized the details of an image pictorially, and in my most recent work, the painterly details in the surface are taking on a new prominence. I like the metaphor of a "double skin" since in my work now, I am questioning the screen not only as a technological skin but also as a type of mask that conceals certain desires and vulnerabilities.

Metaphors of the screen often reference a type of reflection, as mentioned by Daigneault with respect to the work of Peter Doig (see photo posted above). I admit I have not looked at Doig's work in this light, but now it seems obvious. Certainly the association of the screen and reflections is a natural one, since the reflective surface multiplies the real by way of an image. Repetition of an image is commonly used to reference technological reproduction, and has always payed a critical role in my work. But now that the images I am working with focus on images of the body, the notion of reflection and references to the mirror is an important conceptual step backward for me (backward in the sense of moving from an emphasis on the digital reproduction to the mirror's crude reflection). An exploration of the digital screen's relationship to painting undoubtedly remains in my work, but the rich associations of the mirror (with vanity, beauty, solitude, confrontation, etc) are giving my work a more sensual, emotional resonance.