DIGITAL SUPREMATISM - GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION

Tom R. Chambers will have this solo exhibition at The Wichita Falls Museum of Art at Midwestern State University (Wichita Falls, Texas), August-September, 2024.

Chambers is very happy about this since Midwestern State University is his alma mater. He graduated from there in 1969. The university is near his hometown (Nocona, Texas) where family and friends live and work.

This body of work is derived from the pixel. Under the namesake of "Pixelscapes“, they stem from digitized reproductions of Kazimir Malevich's early works prior to his Suprematism and “Black Square”.

They are brought to the forefront to celebrate Malevich's latent and ultimate creativity which gave way to Suprematism with the display of "Black Square" and other works in 1915 as part of the Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0,10.

These “Pixelscapes” conform with the works of non-objective artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Josef Albers, Ad Reinhardt, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian and others. They generated works to establish an abstract visual language of the sublime, pure color, geometric form, deep contemplation and metaphysical pursuit of the truth.

They are a revelation for Chambers when compared to these non-objective works generated many years before the pixel and Digital Revolution. These pixel configurations rival works in Suprematism, Abstraction, Minimalism, Geometric, and Color Field art movements.

Digital Suprematism is a modern interpretation of the Suprematist movement, which was a Russian abstract art movement developed by Kazimir Malevich in the early 20th century. The term "Suprematism" refers to an abstract art based upon “the supremacy of pure artistic feeling” rather than on visual depiction of objects.

In the context of "Digital Suprematism", it refers to the application of these Suprematist principles in the digital art realm. Artists use geometric shapes, often in very basic colors or black and white, to create non-objective, non-representational art in a digital medium. This can be done using various digital tools and platforms, including graphic design software, digital painting, or even coding.

JD Jarvis, Art Critic/Artist and coauthor of Going Digital: The Practice and Vision of Digital Artists (ISBN 1-59200-918-2):

"Mr. Chambers has been experimenting for several years with his series of "Pixelscapes" exhibitions. Utilizing the most basic unit of any computer graphic - the single pixel - his "Pixelscapes" serve as colorful pathways into the purely metaphysical aspects of art which, by virtue of presenting so little, leads the viewer to so much in terms of their own emotional content. This visual poetry contains the ironic connection between Modernist philosophy which moved visual art from figurative representational pictures of the physical world into an expressive and emotional world of abstraction; and the digital realm in which the purely abstract unit of one pixel off - one pixel on has been utilized to reproduce once again, with breath taking accuracy the physical world. Now, Chambers has shown a path by which this tool, which so often serves hyper-reality, is forced to reveal the abstract soul at its very core.“

One Month Gallery (OMG) curators, Moscow, Russia:

“Tom R. Chambers is a Texan with a 'Russian, Suprematist soul. He has repeatedly introduced the modern trend of new media art to the masses. He has brought Minimalism to the pixel. In 2000, Chambers began to look at the pixel in the context of Abstraction and Minimalism. And he is currently working with interpretations of Kazimir Malevich’s 'Black Square' and other Suprematist forms.

His work calls our attention to visual singularity, which is all that we see in the digital universe. Since the pixel corresponds to what we call 'subatomic particles' in our physical universe, Chambers’ work connects us directly with the feeling of Russian Suprematism, described as the spirit that pervades everything, and pays tribute to the faith in the ability of abstraction to convey net feeling in the work.”

Andrey Martynov, Curator, Novosibirsk (Russia):

"Chambers' 'Pixelscapes' have been exhibited in Novosibirsk and also at the Solovetsky Monastery. He is working with the idea of a small unit or cell of an image, which shows a fantastical world through print. He will show 'My Dear Malevich' at the Fourth Novosibirsk International Festival of Digital Imaging at the Novosibirsk State Art Museum. It will be a pleasure for us to show this series that stems from the Suprematist traditions of the great Malevich.

He was a remarkable artist of the 20th century who looked deeply into the philosophical content of images. Chambers uses this same philosophy in his long-term art projects such as 'Pixelscapes'. And what is especially pleasant is that he brings his understanding and knowledge to art students."