Esoteric and Visceral: The Art Portfolio of John Douglas
Filmmaker and mixed media artist John Douglas has built up a portfolio that spans decades and is packed with work both esoteric and visceral. John’s works often focus on social and economic issues sometimes in a frank way and other times with undercurrents of meaning that leave the exact message up for interpretation.
I find John’s work with computer imaging and digital modelling rather intriguing. As we discussed in our previous feature of John’s hard-edged and fiercely political artwork, the artist often uses trees and rocks as motifs, creating detailed, realistic models of these figures and repeating them or grouping numerous models together in a scene. The compositions that John builds with these digital figures seem slightly surreal; they’re dreamlike and off-kilter, especially when combined with sound elements.
John’s soundtracks for his digital films are discordant and even eerie – combined with shadowy, intertwining tree branches, strains of digitized violin and piano seem straight out of a ghost story or uneasy dream.