Introduction to DIGITAL ART

THE COLLECTED DIGITAL ART OF JOHN O’LOUGHLIN

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INTRODUCTION

All the paintings in this collection were created during a six-year period from 1999–2005 and often act as a kind of illustration of and symbolic analogue to some of the mature philosophy, which is to say, to those texts in which deliverance from sensuality to sensibility on both noumenal (time/space) and phenomenal (mass/volume) planes has been explored and effectively delineated in terms &ndash elementally conditioned within a given gender reality &ndash of rising or falling axes.

The best of the paintings reflect these alternatives, especially in relation to the noumenal planes of time and space, which more logically lend themselves to absolutism, and generally deal with a symbolic parallel to either metachemical or metaphysical, fiery or airy, realities, albeit with a bias favouring, in conjunction with the aforementioned philosophy, the latter.

The 'lesser' paintings also or alternatively embrace, in the Element-conditioned watery and vegetative (earthy) senses in which I normally employ these terms, chemical and physical symbolism, but it will be found that they have tended to be eclipsed and, as it were, overhauled by those paintings which are specifically noumenal in their, in particular, metaphysical absolutism.

It is not for me to attempt to spell out or describe exactly what is being symbolized or illustrated by any of the paintings, since, quite apart from the irrelevance of such a procedure to the enjoyment of art, many of them will either prove self-explanatory or at least more intelligible after a study of the relevant philosophical works, which were, after all, the principal motive for their creation in the first place. They can, of course, be viewed and enjoyed without reference to the mature philosophy, but with a knowledge and understanding of it most of them should come to life in a way that will leave no doubt as to their symbolic significance and status as an adjunct to the philosophy in question.

This is especially so of the 'Diagonals', as also of the four volumes of 'Squares and Circles', the full significance of which would be impossible to grasp without a grounding in the later philosophical works. For, in the final analysis, the paintings are there to serve the philosophy, not vice versa! But they are still, I believe, a genuine sort of art, and to me a higher and deeper species of art than anything demonstrably metachemical and 'square', which is to say, noumenally objective, not to say than anything representational and overly phenomenal, whether with an objective (chemical) or a subjective (physical) bias. And, being art, they should not be judged by criteria applying to technical drawing, geometry, or architecture!

Unlike Mondrian, who is in most respects my antithesis, I have not resorted to callipers or rulers in order to measure the exact placement of horizontal or vertical (never mind diagonal) lines within any given form, but have relied on intelligent guesswork, a sort of cultural intuition as to the correct or most advantageous positioning of a line, with a consequence that the result can never be more than an approximation to a central or equidistant position and overall impression &ndash something crucial to the maintenance of art not only as distinct from, say, technical drawing or geometry, but in and of itself, where the artist's individual judgement is the touchstone by which the authenticity and, above all, cultural significance of his art should be evaluated!

For no man has the right to consider himself an artist for whom technique is more than the mere handmaiden of vision. Callipers and rulers simply result in craft, and craft can get along more than adequately without any vision at all, as evidenced by the paucity of imagination attending those works which have been so carefully and meticulously crafted ... that nothing demonstrably artistic or cultural is to be discerned in or, rather, on them at all, and their mass production becomes all the more feasible, if not inevitable!

Perish the thought that the viewer familiar with any of these paintings should come to a similar decision in regard to them!