SpaceTime 2018: First Place

Title: 
Tomorrow’s Creation
Artist (Student Name): 
Alice Wang
Instructor: 
Hannah Yale
School: 
Bellevue High School Art Department,
Washington, United States
Artist’s Statement: 
Attempting to encapsulate the theme ‘Generations’ in one image was a challenging task, but I addressed it through considering generations of art. My poster depicts a series of portraits displayed on screens, showcasing the evolution of digital graphics. Like humans, graphics styles change and distinguish themselves throughout the years, evolving in tandem with the state of technology; it was my goal to showcase this. At the final, bottom-left screen in the image, a person works, sketching a rough design of a future portrait. The lack of a finalized portrait leaves the viewer with an open-ended interpretation of what the future of graphics may constitute; the viewer can only see the beginnings of a creation currently present only in the imagination. The identity and career of the portrait’s artist is ambiguous. I purposefully attempted to push this, allowing ‘you’ as the viewer to engage with the image, directly offering ideas about what the next generation in graphics may be, building upon the previous stages of technological and artistic development drawn in this poster.
Technical Statement: 
Using an iPad application, this entire image except for the text was drawn by hand, further emphasizing its theme that anyone can take part in engineering the future themselves. I hoped to emphasize the pushing of borders between traditional human art and computer-generated graphics without impugning the merits of either medium. When drawing the miniature portraits this poster depicts, I used screenshots of video game graphics throughout the decades, as they served both as inspiration and reference for which artistic styles to emulate. I also added a circuitry motif, referencing a motherboard, focusing on interweaving the ‘generations’ together, culminating in the last bottom-left panel. For visual interest, I used a variety of brush patterns to create the illusion of ‘sparks’ of imagination flying. The text was layered on as a last step.