Museum of Computer Art (MOCA) Show This Friday

Dark Night of the Soul - Lynda Lehmann c 2008

The Museum of Computer Art is hosting a Reception and Awards Ceremony for their "Donnie 2009 Exhibit and Contest" at their Brooklyn gallery this Friday, February 27, from 4 to 7 p.m. Don Archer is Director and founder of MOCA, and the power behind the "Donnie" Exhibit.

The following information is excerpted from the Introduction page of the MOCA site:

MOCA: Museum of Computer Art is a nonprofit US educational corporation chartered by the NYS Department of Education. It is a member of the University of the State of New York and enjoys IRS 501 (c) (3) tax exempt status. It is first and foremost an online museum.

MOCA is host to hundreds of world-class digital artists and thousands of their images, all available for viewing here. It is one of the most heavily-trafficked, comprehensive, frequently-updated and respected computer art museums on the Web.

MOCA was established in 1993 by computer artists Don Archer and Bob Dodson to promote digital art in its various forms and manifestations, including 3-D rendered art, fractals, enhanced photography, animation, mixed media, computer-painted and -drawn art, etc.

In September 2008, MOCA established a brick-and-mortar physical gallery in Brooklyn NY showing advanced digital art in print or on screen.

Here is some information about this week's exhibit. If you're in the area, please visit the new brick and mortar MOCA, and support Don's vision for the art of the future.

WHEN: Friday, February 27, 2009, from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m.
WHERE: Museum of Computer Art, 139 11th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215
Telephone: 718.788.1313

The Gallery at MOCA (http://moca.virtual.museum) is located at 139 Eleventh Street (between Second and Third Avenues), Brooklyn NY. Take the F train to 4th Avenue, or the M or R train to 9th Street. The museum is open otherwise noon - 6, Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, call MOCA at 718.788.1313

The image above is one of my own digital pieces. It's not in the show but here's my Guest Gallery at MOCA. If you do your own digital art, you might want to join and have a gallery there. It's a great site!

All images and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

Presentiment: A Fractal Composition

Presentiment - c 2009 Lynda Lehmann

This is an active and gestural fractal flame, begun in Apophysis and processed in Photoshop. I know nothing about Apophysis, and I don't know how much I'll actually learn in the coming months. But I do love experimenting with it.

Fractals are enigmatic. As organic, flowing, and spontaneous as they may look, they are based on mathematical formulae. It's the same kind of mathematical underpinning that gives our universe order and elegance. So indeed, looking deep into the heart of fractals is like a glimpse into the heart of the cosmos. I'm all for feeling mystical....

If anyone has suggestions for free fractal programs or shareware, I'm all ears. Apophysis is free, so you can download it if you want to try it out. I'm not sure what the newest version might be. I downloaded this one is about three years ago, and have experimented with it a handful of times.

I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend. We're making our own sunshine here, because it's dreary and gray outside. Not to mention "raw." But spring is only a month away!

All images and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

Three New Digital Painting Fantasies

Sunlight Through the Clerestory

Night Lanterns

Rage of the Minotaur


Even with the sparkle of the holidays, it's good to step back from the partying, over-eating, interactions and distractions, to get a sense of who we are. For me, making any kind of art fills the bill. It's sure beats stuffing on holiday goodies, for satisfaction. For me, it's a kind of euphoria that's always attainable. And will be, for as long as I have my faculties.


So let me take this opportunity to wish you all HAPPY HOLIDAYS and every imaginable blessing in the coming year. May all your dreams come true, and may you feel joy in your pursuits, as I do in making images.


All images and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

Mind Portal

That's what digital art is for me, a portal. The technology allows us to create effects that would be either too difficult or actually impossible, to do with brush and pigment in real-time. To think that way back in the 60s I was against the idea of artificial intelligence, because it seemed to take us further afield in our struggle to remain truly human! Many factors in our evolution and cultural choices may conspire to undermine both manners and morality, but the use of a particular technology, of itself, probably doesn't have that power. Whether we further evolve as a species, or devolve, or both polarities of the human experience cancel each other out so that we remain helplessly stuck in one spot, will depend on a multitude of factors of global import. But that's too far a digression for this post!

Now I not only accept the computer as a useful tool, but I embrace it for it's unlimited potential to bring us knowlegde, and aid and augment our research and creativity, among other things. Of course I recognize that it can also be used for ill, but that applies to almost any tool, technique, or technology that's ever been invented. (Evil is in the hands of the perpetrator!)

As for us artists, photographers, writers, and other creative people, I see us as adding new forms of beauty to the world. To me, that is unarguably a good thing!

As I begin to explore a bit more digital painting, I'm finding joy in it just as I do with realistic photography or expressionistic painting. This is one of my new images, and I think I like it.

To me, "Mind Portal" is a colorful, kaleidoscopic digital painting with an inner glow. I find I can lose myself in it, just as I can with many images of other techniques and genres. I know that many people would rather look at something identifiable and realistic, for a pleasing visual experience. For me, there's room for everything along the spectrum of real to surreal and unreal i.e. completely non-objective and fabricated. How about you? Do you find this kind of image engaging, or easy to dismiss?

Image and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

Digital Enigmas

My digital paintings consist of photomanipulation, computer-generated and mixed media works, mostly colorful abstracts with a touch of the mysterious.

Digital art offers us possibilities for finding new ways of seeing, not conceived of before the computer era. New realms of vision and perception, from the everyday to more unusual phenomena, are opened up for us. Digital painting will never replace real-time, brush-and-pigment painting, but it brings us myriad new dimensions of vision, not readily attainable by traditional means alone.

But most often, as in traditional forms of painting, the meaning of an image is the meaning the viewer gives it. Ambiguity is satisfying because it calls on the viewer to engage his/her intellect and perception, and provides a unique and singular visual experience. For me, art is not about copying reality, but about providing the exhilaration of this new visual experience. I hope you enjoy looking at my work.

You might be interested to know that these images originated in my washing machine. Yes, I took pictures of our laundry-in-process, and transformed them into these images. Hopefully you will find some fascination in them, as I did in engaging my own "art of seeing."

The above images are "Seeking the Spirit" and "Celerian." Both images copyright 2008 Lynda Lehmann. All rights reserved. If you would like to see more of my art, including painting, digital art, and photography, please visit www.lyndalehmann.com

Fish Fiesta 2

This is the second version of a digital painting I did a few months back, but it works well, I think, in these colors--better than the first version. I did it in Painter, but have not even watched the tutorial for this program yet. I think I'm having "Beginner's Luck" because I do like some of the results I've gotten thus far. And I've had a lot of fun with it. Hopefully, by this time next year I will have found or made the time to learn something about the software.

Hope you see the humor and whimsy in it! Image c Lynda Lehmann. You can purchase this print at http://www.lyndalehmann.com/

Primal Spirit

Done by manipulation of an original photograph in Photoshop, using a variety of filters. This image reminds me of both primal earth process and primal emotion. We tend to forget sometimes that we are organic beings, closely tied to our planet by our biology. If our Earth suffers, is under assault by myriad destructive forces, than so are we. I think things may be reaching critical mass, and we try to hide from the truth by our material pursuits, our passions, and our ideologies. Wouldn't it be better for all of us to participate in democracy, find our political will and make our voices heard, than passively watch the world slide into environmental crisis?

I recommend the following organizations for reliable information on environmental issues:

Union of Concerned Scientists http://www.ucsusa.org/
Natural Resources Defense Council http://www.nrdc.org/
Stop Global Warming http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/

I have been familiar with the Union of Concerned Scientists and the NRDC for more than 20 years, and I find both groups to be very reliable sources of information. Even the federal government consults with the NRDC for information.

"Primal Spirit" is available at http://www.lyndalehmann.com/ as an archival print on canvas, 11 x 14 inches. Please feel free to ask about other sizes.

Text and image c Lynda Lehmann.