The Computer Canvas: The Dr. Prueitt Exhibit

Omni Fine Art Gallery

By day, Melvin Prueitt Ph.D., ponders the practicalities of physics. His current project: The convection tower, a 21st century air purifier that might one day eradicate smog in L.A. But physicist Dr. Prueitt contributes to future aesthetics in other ways, too. He is also one of our era's pioneering digital artists, at the forefront of a brushless, paperless movement that renders images in pixels, on the computer screen.

Growing up as the scientist in a family of artists, Dr. Prueitt says he was "the only one who could never seem to create on paper." As an adult, he found, it was his love of science that carried him back to his roots.

Dr. Prueitt discovered computer art, back in the early Seventies, almost by accident. His job at The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico required that he organize and display vast amounts of data. Drawing on his artistic bent, he wrote programs to display the numbers in 3-D. The result was visually stunning. Popular Science featured Dr. Prueitt's techniques and images, and the rest is history.

The artistic works that emerged from Dr. Prueitt's machines reflected a new way of generating art. "I'm a passive artist," he says of his craft. "I think of what I'd like to create and have the computer create it. If I can conceive of something, I can have the computer do it."

The pleasing result, a tribute to the 3-D world we perceive and inhabit, relies on form, color, shadow and reflection, all processed through the lens of graphics programs Dr. Prueitt himself has designed. Pictures appear abstract, even surreal, depicting objects unknown to the natural world. At the same time, the 3-D shapes, lighting, and shadow imbue the images with a sense of reality, comforting to the psyche and restful to the eyes.

Ever the scientist, Dr. Prueitt has, over the years, tapped his knowledge of disciplines from biology to engineering to refine his techniques. In a process he terms "selective breeding" or "evolutionary art," for instance, he starts with 2-D images that can be viewed in 16 different ways. He then selects the variation he deems best, repeating the process until a work of art is born. "If the process is repeated again and again," says Dr. Prueitt, "there can be more distinct possibilities than grains of sand on a beach," making every picture truly one of a kind.

Some of Dr. Prueitt's more recent work derives from the classic technique of stereo art - created with two complementary images, one meant to be viewed at the left and the other at the right. To experience the phenomenon, simply enter here.
(OMNI made a mistake. The first pair of images are not stereo. Try the others. You can click "Continue" to see other images. Then you can click on the large image to get a larger image.)

In the recent debate over technology's sins and virtues, Dr. Prueitt's stance is simple: "With this great revolution in computers - my small PC is much faster than most super-computers I worked on previously - we ought to be able to create beauty," he says. And so he does.

His collected digital works, featured in the national press and even in Star Trek I, II, and III, have created beauty for as many as 500 million pairs of eyes. And his newest product - an accessible graphics program called Artistique - brings his techniques to the public at large. According to the artist, "anyone can use it to make great art" even children. - Stacey Hayde