The Anatomy of Gallery Process for Digital: Is digital painting valuable to collectors?

A great painting makes you feel: it evokes powerful, transcendent emotion.

From the blank canvas branches infinite potential realms of individualistic expression, processed by the viewer through lush, sensory-evocative visual language. Whether the artist’s representational canvas is on virtual display, through software synonymous with Adobe Photoshop, Procreate and Krita, or is authentic textile, tactile and stretched on pinewood frame, confines of creative expression are more to the imaginative mind than aspect of “medium”—traditional, digital or otherwise entwined.

Medium merely functions as a vehicle for the transference of sensory language, a gateway from artist to viewer for the conveyance of complex concepts and themes. Yet, since the branding of “digital art” in the early 1980s, when artist Harold Cohen used AARON, an early painting program of his engineer, the digital medium has flourished to foster maladjustment and unceremonious refusal of merit in the gallery landscape on a global scale, with minimal repudiation.

Stigma has been circumvented, however, with Cohen’s pioneering man-machine collaborations, which are, though a marvel, more rudimentary AI meets human art, than backbone for the intentional human creation exhibited of contemporary digital drawing software use: a human use which notably aligns with traditional process.

Digital is frequently portrayed as the sensationalist Hollywood “go to” medium, the reigning art of cinema and advertisement, known for its accessible speed, perceived cheapness and intangible value.

The inundation of generative art on online platforms has further defamed digital, strengthening poorly proposed notions of artistic inequity. To the disparity of practicing professionals, digital art, ingrained as the “lesser medium” against its traditional counterpart, is erroneously interchanged with generative imagery—the prompt alone being allocated to consummate representation of process, and reflection of intrinsic human experience, two complexities a sole line of directional text imputation is fundamentally flawed to illustrate.

As a gallery artist working in the digital medium, my aim is to gradually circumvent this decades old stigma of inequity and champion digital art as a medium distinct from generative imagery, one substantively worthy of representation by curators in fine art.

My work “Dancing with Wolves”, painted as Poetic Tiger Gallery online’s inaugural digital piece, was accomplished over hundreds of hours of recorded screentime, some of which have been condensed and ascribed to this posting for your viewing pleasure.

This video sample of expedited creation is a mere stitch in a lengthy timeline more synonymous with the completion of many advanced traditional gallery artworks. Though, as with traditional art, time spent on a work is not a reliable sole indicator of said work’s monetary value or celebrated success.

Digital art can be bold and simplified or complex and intricate. It can take months of design or merely a day. Whether digitally or traditionally accomplished, the core of human experience shared remains constant, unchanged.

While digital art can be realized on a mobile device with UGEE’s low entry cost S640 tablet in a free painting software to high proficiency, more advanced works are often designed for gallery exhibition at a far more significant expense, with higher grade graphics and computational processing systems; tablets championing refined touch sensitivity; and more nuanced, subscription-based painting software, all which supplant—and in instances exceed—traditional medium supply costs.

Yet, digital work is still pressured to retail at lower monetary mock-ups, causing digital gallery artists to be at greater jeopardy of failing to breaking-even, especially under older 50/50 standardized price models upheld by curators.

The presence of digital in fine art is an exceptional rarity, so much so that technical aspects of its presentation and process are yet being established, discussed and revised amongst rising members and cohorts of the medium. In 2024, I assembled a group of 8 digital painters to edify consistent protocols for gallery practice: Digital Artist Exhibitions (DAE) will be débuting online in early 2026 to help cement digital in galleries and fine art worldwide.

Many artists are staggeringly overwhelmed by the digital medium at onset. Some are never able to adapt a natural aesthetic that feels authentic to our historical concept of fine art—the timeless essence of traditional acrylics, watercolors and oils, embellished through the techniques of old masters that are yet respected and practiced today.

Such technical feats are more commonly recognized with accolades given to works accomplished in traditional mediums. Digital artists, particularly painters, are often bereft of this technical aspect of recognition: at best, they are sidelined with a fraction of the regard in fine art, which can disadvantage their CVs and overall enticement to galleries.

It is not an unheard anecdote for digital artists migrating away from their medium of choice to thrive and become renowned in traditional art, though this is not a story practitioners of the status quo tend to favour or tell. The notion itself defies decades of insinuation of artistic inferiority.

Digital Art Process

With the enormity of freedom and adjustable parameters that underline digital brushwork, there is much to consider before the virtual brush strikes canvas—digital artists make an array of highly conscious, deliberate decisions that can cause the transition from pen to canvas to become significantly jilted, without years of technical refinement.

I spent many years editing complex photographic works with a pen tablet, before shifting to the realm of digital painting. Sensitivity of the physical pen tool itself is an adjustable factor in accompanying tablet software. Some personalities will thrive in this vast visual playground, while highly perfectionist individuals, much like myself, will fine divot after divot to falter.

Painting on virtual canvas can make the experience of viewing a work more compact and accessible, through zoom tools, directional flipping/mirror functions and live thumbnail preview windows, in advanced software the likes of Adobe Photoshop, however, this expediency of minutia and big picture assessment does not alter the fundamental nature of a work.

Use of the notorious “UNDO” shortcut to more seamlessly trial divergent ideas is one of digital’s most prized assets, though, for artists, this can bolster an expectation for perceived technical “perfection”. The ease to express limitless possibility with little prevalent punitive measure can lead practitioners of the medium down a rabbit hole of anxious uncertainty and bloated artwork completion times. To subvert overwhelmed affectations, an aspect of restraint is required with digital work unparalleled to its traditional counterpart.

One asset digital art does have to its benefit in expediency is an ability to duplicate and reposition redundant visual patterns and objects within canvas software, however, direct duplication without conscious adjustment can lead to an overly exacting, unnatural appeal.

As with my most recent pieces, “Dancing with Wolves” was painted in the supine position with a matte, 4K, suspended monitor and high CRI-index room-light source, within the confines of an assembled grey-curtained enclosure, to maintain visual integrity and avoid confusion from colourcast—light reflected from coloured objects in a physical workspace onto an artist’s virtual canvas display.

Before painting can begin, my screen is calibrated with a colorimeter, a device used to measure heat from a monitor’s mechanical/electrical process of display: these measurements are then employed to create a unique color profile for my digital workspace. This calibration process makes the colours visible on my display more accurate and easily transferable to tangible print.

The more in alignment your colour profile is with that of your printer or printing service, the less printed “artist proofs” you will require to achieve an optimal, accurate physical representation of your digital artwork. My particular process has been intuited from the practice of professional editors and digital photographers, of which I have acquired some essential knowledge in regard, during my enrollment at Niagara College pre-spinal-injury.

The ability for digital art to be readily reprinted is a point of contention, which has been subverted by the creation of the digital original or, commonly penned in-show by celebrated digital gallery artist Tom Bagshaw, the one-off giclée. Derived from the French for “a squirt” or “fine spray”, “giclée” was coined at Nash Editions, a studio in California, started by Graham Nash of the music group Crosby, Stills and Nash, later to include Neil Young. Nash forwarded the use of the early professional inkjet printer IRIS inkjet for the tangible print of his own photographic work and fine art printing.

Instead of championing artistic expression, galleries became befuddled by a supposed lack of artistic merit in the technical practice of an industrial machine that sprays ink.

While traditional darkroom printing processes still had a hold in limited editions, the term “giclée” arose in 1992 to become associative with the highest quality archival, pigment, inkjet print on fine art paper or canvas.

The term was, undeniably, an attempt to subvert stigma with phonetic finesse. Much appreciation to Colour Systems Inc. in Toronto, Canada for my knowledge of this particular anecdote.

The digital original or one-off giclée is a physical representation of a work that is determined to be singularly printed on a select paper size and type as a unit, as guaranteed by the artist with their signature and, on occasion, an accompanying signed Certificate of Authenticity. It is the limited edition of one, frequently embellished with traditional mediums: acrylic inks, acrylic iridescent medium, Austrian crystals and quality gold leaf, as determined by members of Digital Artist Exhibitions (DAE). Digital originals are printed with pigment inks on archival fine art papers, which have an array of aesthetically pleasing textures, or as one-off giclée on canvas frequently stretched on pinewood frame.

In the instance of giclée on canvas, an artwork’s virtual canvas is extended to accommodate the printing of gallery-wrapped sides, with painted additions to the original image or a single-color selection as the side-fill for bordering canvas space: these two methods are the forefront of premium quality. The dupe and flip method, in which edges of an original image are duplicated and flipped to replace blank gallery-wrapped sides for giclée print, is a method often used in calls for mass production and considered less of a professional approach for museum-grade quality.

Photography and Digital Art

Photography and digital art are presentational twins: from custom framing to paper selection, much of their general gallery process is the same. There are, however, significant distinctions in art papers favoured, with digital fine artists consistently motioning towards qualities of matte finish; minimal to no OBAs, the later in the case of my own digital artwork; and a paper weight of > 300 gsm.

Optical brighteners or OBAs fluoresce with UV exposure, causing art papers to acquiesce to a purer-white finish. Some glazes, in our instance glass, intended for custom-framing, reduce UV exposure, which, theoretically, may influence the colour warmth of OBA inclusive papers and their mechanically inked images.

Dancing with Wolves

“Dancing with Wolves” was printed with pigment inks on Canson Infinity ARCHES Aquarelle Rag 100% cotton fine art paper (310 gsm). Aquarelle is my personal preference for the one-off giclée, an archival paper capable of deep blacks, crisp whites and printed artwork with superb tonal range, ranking amongst the most prestigious watercolour papers globally. With a history extending centuries, ARCHES papermakers have been in the production of premium quality fine art papers since 1492. Today, ARCHES is the only paper mill in France using a traditional cylinder mould process for its paper production universally.

Custom-framing is an art of precision, essential for wall-ready gallery presentation. My works are all custom-framed by Darlene Nesbitt of FAYBEL and Carol Gay of Artscapes Gallery, celebrating over 40 years of industry experience. Much of their technical knowledge has been passed onward to myself: high precision measurements and positioning; acid-free matting and materials, including spacers for art prints with removed white handling boarders; and professional storage and humidity control of framed gallery art. Digital giclée demand handling and storage respect equivalent to that understood by gallerists for traditional art.

Once custom-framed, my works are professionally photographed in my grey room studio with two Paul C. Buff Einstein flash units, positioned on either side of the framed artwork to create long, clean reflections in metallic frames and eliminate distracting shadows throughout general framing contexts, all while avoiding reflections cast on the framed work’s glaze (glass). Large softbox light modifiers are attached to each flash unit to feather light-source reflections on the frame.

Photographs are captured remotely through a receiver system: transceivers attached to each flash unit communicate with a transmitter attached to my Canon EOS 1D-X Mark II DSLR camera. While I use a Canon EF 70-200 mm f/2.8L IS III USM lens for custom-framed work in my grey room studio, one of the photographs in this article has been taken with window light and my alternate Canon EF 50 mm f/1.2L USM lens.

The receiver system within my grey room is connected via cable from my camera to an easily portable laptop computer. Controlled through Canon EOS Utility Software, remote shooting and camera adjustments from my laptop prevent any potential scenarios of captured motion blur and equipment misalignment (shifting of the focal plane, a plane perpendicular to the lens direction, which should be parallel to the framed work for balanced lens distortion: disruption of the camera’s levelling can lead to this distortion result).

All photography is completed with assistance from Darlene Nesbitt of FAYBEL, due to the ramifications of my stage 4 osteoporosis and severe spinal injury. Final photographs are finetuned in Adobe Lightroom for online display on socials and gallery platforms, including professional online webstores: minor instances of light dispersion on the framed work’s glaze (glass), along with the ever-present occurrence of lens distortion in each photograph, as mentioned prior, are systematically removed.

In Conclusion

From a Sypder 5 Pro colorimeter to my selection of Canon equipment and Adobe painting software, my technological investment for digital gallery artwork has been steep, supporting years of acquired knowledge and process refinement. This monetary investment in quality systems is reflected in the listing value of my custom-framed, wall-ready digital art. Circumventing stigma, my work is neither cheap, fast nor intangible: digital painting requires dedication, skill and builds value in giclée print.

Sources

• DIGITAL ART (https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/d/digital-art) – TATE
• HAROLD COHEN: AARON FEB 3-MAY 19, 2024 (https://whitney.org/exhibitions/harold-cohen-aaron) – Whitney Museum of American Art
• What is Gilcee? (https://www.coloursystemsinc.com/articles/what-is-giclee) – Paul Schillinger (May 2022)
• CANSON® INFINITY ARCHES® AQUARELLE RAG 310GSM – MATTE (https://www.canson-infinity.com/en/products/archesr-aquarelle-rag) – Canson Infinity