Doug Panton
Doug Panton, R.C.A. - Artist Biography
Over the course of his long career, multi-media artist Doug Panton has always blended new and unusual materials with traditional media. A professor in the Faculty of Design at Ontario College of Art for over twenty years, he embraces experimentation and risk-taking and in this latest series of works, has honed a unique hybrid digital and analogue based practice, which he describes as exploring new frontiers of expression.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
My artistic journey is guided by intricate and unstable systems found in nature. Instead of seeing the inherent unpredictability of nature as a hindrance, I draw inspiration from it. I believe in relinquishing control and recognizing the chaos of the natural world––it is crucial to infuse the work with inspiration and the possibility of an unexpected outcome. My fascination with intuitive artmaking began a few years ago, allowing me to rapidly combine and juxtapose elements and transform them into new creations. This collocation process is organic and unplanned. I love intuitively creating in this manner partly because it is efficient, fun, and expressive. It does not need to make rational sense.
Starting the Engines:
I make imagery from my heart and play. Initially, I use graphite and paper to ground my work. The notion of this playing around is an experiment with a chance moment. The very use of this mindset is its greatest asset. Freedom from design or commitment allows me to compare things that would not otherwise happen. When plotting an original idea, it always provides a set of tensions. Its process, along the way, might afford opportunities. The way it looks at how it will change through chance. It might be partly emotional and partly calculated, taking the time for the arrival, a new perception through an unplanned instance provides the ideal playground and the best possibility for uniqueness.
Juxtaposing Myself:
In the beginning, this form of hybridity became the blending of new or unusual materials with traditional mediums. This integration and merging of an analogue with digital technology play a role in my artwork. Engaging in this type of contra-positioning and incorporation of elements provides a wide swath of possibilities.
Digital tools allow me to experiment and transcend the limitations of physical media, exploring new frontiers of expression. However, the journey doesn’t end in the digital ether. Instead, it culminates in a return to the analogue realm, where I merge the digital with the tangible. In my final act of creation, I employ collage techniques, layering digital compositions with physical elements to create a synthesis of form and texture.
This shape and risk-taking process have been my playground over the last five years. A mixed spectrum that is broad enough to suggest a range of opportunities—can bring together a varied interpretation that is ultimately oblique and subtle—so a full scope of possible versions can evolve in this potentially unique outcome.
Artistic Technique: Panton begins each piece with graphite and paper – this important step allows the artist to ground his work, but also to play and experiment. Freedom from design or commitment allows him to leave much of the composition to chance and letting his emotions help guide the way. Panton’s artistic journey does not end in the digital ether but rather culminates in a return to a physical art object that is created using collage techniques, layering digitally inked physical elements by hand to create wonderfully boyant semi-abstracted evocations of the intricate and unstable systems found in nature.
