As Allan Hancock College prepares to welcome students back for fall classes, the Ann Foxworthy Gallery invites the public to experience the digital artwork of Bryn Forbes. The exhibit of Forbes’ work, which includes digital projection, digital video art and static art pieces, runs Aug. 19-27.
“I think Bryn’s work gives gallery visitors a wonderful glimpse into the creativity and experimentation happening currently in the digital art realm,” said Ann Foxworthy Gallery Director Laura-Susan Thomas. “I am personally excited to be able to bring an art form we have not shown before to the gallery and our community as well.”
Forbes’ art reflects his interests. He works with photography, mosaics, sculptures, digital paintings, and mathematically-generated art. He is passionate about architecture, wildlife, people, the ocean, the complexity of cities, and the patterns of life.
Forbes’ work is alternately very detailed and realistic, as well as impressionistic. He uses long exposures and intentional camera movement to capture the essence of motion or the colors of a place while eliminating the distracting details.
His work gravitates toward the more abstract pieces to allow the viewer to keep coming back to the image, bringing their own interior landscape to the image rather than having everything spelled out for them.
“My art forces me to keep an eye on the world around me, always looking for the visually interesting, and finding beauty whether it’s far away and obvious, or close and hidden,” said Forbes. “My goal is to keep myself looking and to share the beauty I find with others.
“In some small way, I’m trying to hang on to a fraction of the moments of beauty I’ve seen and preserve them.”
Forbes has also been exploring the mathematical world of fractals since high school. He was introduced to the artistic possibilities by his calculus teacher, who hooked up a video camera to a TV and pointed it back at the TV creating an infinite recursion.
This “picture of a picture” infinite recursion is similar to the mathematics of calculating fractals. The output of an equation is fed back into the inputs of an equation creating images and moving video.
The Ann Foxworthy Gallery is in the Academic Resource Center, Bldg. L, on Hancock’s Santa Maria campus.
For more information on the artist, visit www.brynforbes.com. For more on the exhibit or the Ann Foxworthy Gallery, visit www.hancockcollege.edu/gallery, contact gallery director Laura-Susan Thomas at laura.thomas@hancockcollege.edu or 1-805-922-6966 ext. 3465.
— Christopher McGuinness for Allan Hancock College.