BITMAPS are her brush and the computer mouse her pencil: Brigit Egging is set to transform our traditional image of visual art.
The Dutch born painter Brigit Egging has discovered a new medium for her art. It is the computer. When you see her digital drawings, it needs a reminder to realise that you are dealing with computer generated art. Perhaps in actual fact, her digital drawings and paintings are digital only in form and name. In reality, it is still the artist painting and exploring the world around her.
Brigit Egging is, in fact, firmly steeped in more traditional art forms. She started with the traditional skills of painting, drawing and graphic art, making extensive use of lino and etching techniques. And so it is the digital tools that most resemble the feel of charcoal, linocut and pencil drawing that come to her most naturally. Some of her digital work have the feel of linocuts, others of a charcoal drawing, yet other look like an aquarel or an oil painting. "My work, whether in traditional or new media stays the same to me, I draw from the same source and explore my visual language. The computer is a tool in conveying my inner images to the outside" she maintains.
The idea to use digital media for her artwork came as an accidental by product. When Brigit ventured out to expand her artistic career by taking on commissioned work for graphic design, she received a grant to set up her County Sligo based Cheis Corran Art Studio. The business side of her venture required a computer. Without any special training or even substantial computer skills, she set out doodling about in different graphic applications. It was then that she discovered that these graphic tools had more potential than merely editing photos. A "new freedom to creating images" revealed itself to her.
The actual process of digital drawing bears surprising similarities to that of traditional drawing and painting. The only difference is that Brigit uses a computer mouse instead of a pencil or brush: she starts with a blank sheet of paper, namely the blank digital file in a drawing programme. From here, sketching the image she has in mind is with the pencil tool of the programme are the basis for the colour and form to follow suit. This she adds from a number of different digital painting software. Various programmes offer different tools. Whether it be a brush, a fill, a smear or a smudge tool, she selects the most suitable for the image. "I discovered options in these programmes that allowed me to mix colours in a way as I would working with paint on paper".
But setting aside all similarities with more traditional artistic forms, there are differences too. To Brigit, digital art is "more forgiving": Mistakes can easily be undone by pressing the "undo" button. She can also save her work at various stages of development, try out new directions, dismiss them and go back to a previous version. This greater artistic freedom is not all. Digital art also means being less dependent on expensive materials and ensuring a continuous supply of paints, canvasses and brushes. The experimental approach to computer art is matched by the constant presence of the computer, the continuous option to fiddle about a bit without big intentions, but maybe coming across a big idea unexpectedly. "the effectiveness of the computer as tool allows me a more immediate interaction and immersion with my emotional memory" explains Brigit Egging.
Recently, Brigit has experimented with collage techniques as well. It is a long way from her first digital drawings, reminiscent of charcoal or pencil drawings, sometimes with the feel of an etching to them, to the textual feel of her recent collages. On route are her digital paintings that are so reminiscent of her previous paintings on canvas, that her friends and colleagues have commented on the striking continuity of her style and imagery.
Yet many people meet digital art with a misconception, or at worst, with suspicion. Brigit encounters a fair share of lack of understanding: "It seems that many people do not know how to understand the technique. They mostly can’t form an idea about the process involved and may think I only manipulate existing images." She also sees that people may have a problem to accommodate her elaborate use of colour with the form of the finished work. Her print out are limited to the size of A4 yet her use of form and colour are call to mind larger scale paintings: "Colleague artists have been mentioning their interest to see the works printed on a larger scale" she comments.
Her work has been on display at exhibitions in Ireland and The Netherlands . In 2000 her work was exhibited with that of her friend and fellow artist Jan Punter in Neede, Holland. Jan, a computer programmer, supported her first "doodles" as she calls them and encouraged her to continue along the path she had tentatively taken. Another major exhibition was this year’s "Converge" in Hengelo, The Netherlands, where she exhibited her digital paintings alongside the works of another close artistic friend, Steven Veldkamp.
"Regardless of how new or how traditional the process, my art has the same content, it shows an inner reality. The depiction of the human figure, modifications or distortions of the objective reality and elements of chance and the unconscious are a vital part of my work. I am inspired by art that narrates and has the courage to be vulnerable."
Through their vulnerable nature, her drawings and paintings achieve to connect to people. They display an essential strength that stems from truth to human feeling and life in all its manifestations that touches the observer deeply. A river of tears flowing into a stony land, a tray serving grey and one red hearts, a voice from a telephone swirling around a female body, a swan gliding in beautiful yet painful blood-tinged grace or a painting of her friend Steven’s room that portrays him without imaging his face - a room more laden with his personality than a portrait could ever express. Brigit Egging’s art touches the chords of the weakest and strongest side of the human soul. A rare achievement to come out of bits and bytes.