Artist Statement:

I am in a raw mood, somewhere between contentment, unease, angst and spiritual yearning. I plop myself onto the couch and put on my headphones. Tame Impala, Sylvan Esso and Tycho take turns singing to my music catchers. Coming to the forefront, there’s something that is trying to be released, to get out, express itself or be seen.

Cascade

I pull out my phone, open the editing app and start to create. I layer paintings, drawings and photographs. I blend, cut, duplicate and adjust. I enter the space. It becomes actively still in this quite intimate and connected minute expanse. I forget my identity and remember my soulful essence.

Tribal Assembly

Synchronicity led me to digital art. During one of my fourth year medical electives, I was in Colorado learning emergency psychiatry. On a day off, I went on a hike to the Flatirons in Boulder. During this hike, I met an artist, Jenny Odell, who was giving a lecture at the local university the next day. As we started to chat about the use of technology in art, I expressed how I felt incorporating technology could feel disingenuous or artificial. Coincidentally, she revealed the subject of her lecture would explore this topic. In her lecture, in fact, she would encourage artists not to be afraid of technology and to instead embrace it.

Heart Root

This interaction planted the first seed in my mind. An emergency psychiatry doctor planted the second. When I shared my art with her between seeing patients, she asked if I could make larger prints of my drawings. By chance, later that week I met a fellow artist at an art co-op. After asking about the printing and digital editing process, she introduced me to a user-friendly smart phone app called Adobe PhotoShop Mix. This app is a great tool for those, like myself, who are not as savvy with the original Adobe PhotoShop.

Sacred Drumming

Since this discovery, I have been having fun making art with technology as an extension of myself, using my hands on my slick and sometimes cracked screen when the urge to create starts to arise. I am grateful that Spirit/Universe/Creator led me to digital art and to embrace the ability to freely undo and redo psychedelic kaleidoscopes and simple designs.

Reverb

To view more of the artist’s work please visit: https://www.vanessavelezmd.com/

Gracy