Artist in Focus / In conversation with Jamie Aherne, Blackwater Gallery
Combining technology and art, Chuck Elliott has a passion for creating beautifully manipulated digital artworks. Utilising a computer’s ability to meticulously alter light, colour, and form. Elliott’s work has a core in abstract fine art but has evolved alongside advancements in the digital design field, to produce something that transcends expectations of what can be produced by traditional methods.
We catch up with Chuck and discuss his latest creative developments as well as take a look into the life of one of the UK’s most recognisable digital artists.
In conversation with Jamie Aherne, Blackwater Gallery
Modular Locus / In conversation with Freeny Yianni
FY Tell us a bit about your approach to your work. How would you describe it? What are you looking for in a subject? How has your style developed, and what matters to you?
CE Sometime back in 1984 I saw, and used, the first Apple Mac computer to be imported to the UK. It was an important moment and one that resonates to this day. In that moment I decided I wanted to use digital systems tools to draw my work, as opposed to the more traditional media I was being trained to use. In some senses, you could characterise this as the difference between rock music and electronica. Rock music remains super relevant of course, esp the post-rock movement, but there seems to be space in the discourse for a more contemporary means of production too.
The digital offers a host of revolutionary options, many of which revolve around the idea of the edit, and the remix. Effectively you can draw, colour and model, and then refine, edit and remix, to arrive at images that simply weren’t possible to create before the digital revolution.
In conversation with Freeny Yianni at the Brewhouse Gallery, March 2020.
In conversation with Helena Cardow, TAG Fine Arts
HC Tell us about your background?
CE I started as an art student in 1984 I think, studying illustration at Bath Technical College, and went from there to a Foundation year, followed by a BA (Hons) degree, so seven years at college in all. My BA was at the old Hornsey School of Art, now amalgamated into Middlesex University. Personally, I would’ve been in favour of the UK retaining its independent network of art schools, I don’t think they are or should be departments in larger universities. Historically British art schools have often been absolute powerhouses of contemporary artistic and political thinking, and are more than capable of standing alone in my opinion! That said, I was delighted to graduate in ’92 with a First class Hons degree, and from there I moved straight into Soho’s art and design scene…
An interview and studio visit from Helena Cardow, one of TAG Fine Arts’ curators, and regular exhibitor at the London Art Fair, the London Original Print Fair and Ink Miami, amongst many other annual events.
Meet the Artist / An interview with Jess Lloyd-Smith at Modern Art Buyer
JLS How did you become an artist / where did you start your artistic training?
CE No idea! How does anyone ‘become an artist’. I think the question is, in some ways, a false premise. I think we can all make art and be artists at different points in our lives, if and when we choose to be. Making art and being an artist are clearly two different disciplines though, two different mindsets.
I guess I’ve only just recently begun to feel that I am an artist, previously I used to think of myself as a maker, or someone who creates artwork, which is an equally interesting proposition of course, but with subtly different goals. A more design oriented focus perhaps, less cerebral, more about making.
The Chancy Element / In conversation with Matthew Collings
MC I can see the images are computer generated. I respond to the intricacy, rhythms, playfulness, but I’ve no idea what technical processes are involved. I see very beautiful visual relationships, and I imagine from their intensity that creating them involves a high degree of labour, as with any artistic process, and in fact, it’s basically drawing...?
CE Yes, every part of the image is hand drawn. But you could argue about whether what I do is really drawing or not. Both my brothers are artists. And we have a lively debate all the time. One of them tells me that drawing is always “pencil on paper.”
Chuck Elliott and Matthew Collings in conversation at Close House.
Fluid Dynamic / In conversation with Louise Copping
LC You use terms such as ‘liquid geometry’, ‘captured light’ and ‘brilliant incandescence’ to describe your practice. Can you expand on these phrases?
CE I guess they’re a kind of linguistic shorthand, to sum up the core of what I’m going for at the moment. Digital drawing systems allow you to create dense sculptural forms that haven’t previously been possible. Geometries can be far more complex than they could even ten years ago. Zaha Hadid’s practice, for instance, is a textbook example of how technology is changing the way we can explore form. Studying glass making, I became aware that Dale Chihuly, for example, creates a colour and kinetic interaction with light in his work, that I’m definitely keen to evoke. So trying to capture some of that effervescence and brilliance, by exploring light and colour densities, and embedding that drama in the work, is a key part of the process.
Chuck Elliott in conversation with Louise Copping. An interview originally published by Art of England magazine.
Crack magazine / In conversation with Jake Applebee and Tom Frost
Chuck’s fascination with the machine as an object for generating an artistic product is not just confined to the world of physical art, as he explains:
“With the digitisation of music there are great examples, if you listen to Aphex Twin, Orbital or Underworld, of how you could push things forward. I mean look at Tomato Studios and Underworld in the early 1990s. You had people there doing the graphics and artwork, as well as the music. Through these various parts, they were putting together these totally beautiful, immersive environments. The world of fine art should be very organic, as much as I would imagine Underworld’s studio to be, with the whole artistic package working as one.”
“When Underworld plays live I’m really interested to see them push the music through the computers at the same time as the images are mixed and produced, as if they are playing them as a piece of music.”
Chuck Elliott in conversation with Jake Applebee and Tom Frost of Crack magazine, ahead of the now influential magazine's first issue.