Stephen Rock Original Artwork

Digital Images
Alchemy of Life | Artifacts of Living | Tools from the Shed | Architects of Light

"Forgotten Language" 36" x 72" pigmented digital print on canvas 2002

Alchemy of Life Series

These works are a continuing exploration using the scanner as a lens to capture images. Through the process of digital printmaking, common objects become transformed into objects of importance. This work borrows from the metaphors of alchemy, taking ordinary or mundane personal items and transforming them into gilded icons. This complex body of work delves further into motivation, aesthetic and process in the digital studio. With advanced knowledge of the input and output devices, I strive to maintain an intuitive use of the creative tools while avoiding the cliches of the filtered digital image.

I have come to appreciate the artifacts that I get by using this process. Scanning 3 dimensional objects creates unexpected anomalies that can then be used to carve and embellish the surface of the image. While I do use Photoshop to shape the images I want, it is by no means the driving force for these images, only a vehicle to facilitate my ideas.

The driftwood images actually came about after creating vector images and observing that they would never come close to the feel that I was after - I left my studio and went to a local park in West Seattle - there, I sat on the beach and after sunset returned with some interesting pieces of driftwood. While scanning them I realized that the organic input was what I had needed to get beyond the "digital" feel of my subjects. I have progressed to the point of working with toys from my childhood, artifacts from my life, the familiar and intimate soles of shoes and even standing on my scanner to get the source material I then transform.

My intention is not to collage a composition but to capture an object and extract its' soul.