Kelsey

Kelsey Wroten is an amazing illustrator and graphic novelist. Originally from Kansas City, Kelsey now lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. This portrait exists in two versions; first a pen and ink drawing on pigment tinted and painted paper; second as an archival pigmented (inkjet) print. Both were exhibited at the Salina Art Center where director Bill North wrote, “

After creating the drawing, Lyon converted his code into digital files that could be loaded into Adobe Illustrator, a popular graphics editor. The resulting files, one for each layer of the drawing, were then combined to create a single file which could be further manipulated in Adobe Photoshop before printing with an inkjet printer. This print, like Lyon’s Carrie Americana, can be considered digital art because it was output as an inkjet print from a digital image file and not drawn with a pen on paper or printed under pressure on a press.

A comparison of the two versions of Kelsey is instructive and reveals an important difference between digital and post-digital art. In this version, digital information was translated into an equivalent graphic image. Lyon’s pen and ink version, on the other hand, was created through the physical action of the pen under the artist’s direction. Visually, the drawn version has an autographic character and sense of gesture not present in the digital version.

— Bill North, director, Salina Art Center

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right-click the image and open in a new tab to see the detailed squiggly lines that produce each image.