I’ve wrapped up some work from the last several years, after multiple tweaks and iterations. It’s inspired by, and sometimes uses, my Analog Aerials pieces. But there are echoes going back to my Grids series, and even further. Introducing my Digital Aerials work!

As opposed to the usual landscape format, you know — with a strong horizon line — these pieces have rectangular elements, and natural lines, as seen from above. I gathered early ideas as just hints and inklings, took a few shots from plane windows while traveling, and then added a new, favourite palette. Along the way, I worked out some options with rectangles, and slowly, slowly, these pieces emerged.

By evolving previous work and ideas, I’m learning more about myself. I’ve realized that the palette I’m digging into is very personal: it is a combination I notice in other work, and finally had to explore for myself: pinks, teals, and browns.The first time I thought about these colours together goes back years, to when getting our colours done was the rage. Remember that? I was deep into full-time work, not doing any art, but suddenly, these three colors were definitely important to me.

Likewise, I prefer the big-picture view — what is the context, the history, the future implications? Looking at a problem from above or a distance is the way I like to operate. If we change our point of view, does a problem make more sense? I find it often does.

And in juxtaposing crisp lines with rough edges, I’m looking at my tendencies to organize, balanced with the natural world’s organic lines, something we all bump up against, when life has other plans.

So really, this series, though very abstract, with no photographic elements like my minimalist work, is more like myself, more a series of self-portraits, than ever before. I hope you see something you recognize as well in this new Digital Aerials series.