Introduction:  |  Biography:  |  Philosophy:  |  Events:  |  Gallery:  |  Contact:

Introduction:

Hello, my name is Mitya Sargeant and I am a digital artist living and working in Montagu. Montagu is a beautiful town in the Western Capeprovince of South Africa and is situated on the famous R62. How did I get into digital art? It's a good question and I would have to take you back to when I worked in traditional methods such as water colour, oils and acrylics. Even when I worked using these traditional media I always felt the need to brake rules, to go beyond the parameters of the medium and to explore happy accidents and the unusual. I chose not to paint a realistic portrayal of what I saw but more an abstract approach was taken. The simple harmony of colour and shape or perhaps obvious disharmony seemed important. Composition becomes important as the image is a product of your imagination and not a representation of what you are seeing infront of you. However after many years of playing and exploring I began to realize that the medium what ever it was would dictate the final outcome. For example the liquidity of the water colour would at first be quiet seductive having that reflective quality of wet paint on paper, however it would soon enough dry and leave a layer of paint which begged for more to be put on it. The colour changed and would continue to change as each layer is placed onto it. The malleability of the oils were also most appealing as the surface could be manipulated and polished. However lots of craftsmanship would be needed and another very important ingredient required, and that being patience. The result was to explore design ideas in a graphics program on the computer.
 

In those early days the graphic applications were limited but as the technology has improved and the processing power somewhat increased it is making it just so much easer to pick up a stylus and just create using the screen as you canvas. I find the power amazing, the freedom equally so. There is however not complete freedom and ease. Much like any good peace of art rules of composition, colour are important. How the eye moves around the picture, the subject mater the theme and how the artist captures time are all vital.
 

To complete this introduction of who I am and what I do I want to leave you with one interesting question. If Leonardo de Vinci or Michelangelo or any of the truly great artist of history were alive today, would they be sitting behind a canvas painting as they did in their day? Well I believe that the Leonardo?s and Michelangelo of today  are working with cutting edge technology and using there own creativity and ingenuity to express with great power