Shining a spotlight on the digital art of pixels

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The Sea Cliff Art’s Council has been honoring the work of Len Antinori throughout the month of November as a part of their Lost in Pixels exhibit. On Sunday Nov. 17, the Arts Council hosted Antinori, to discuss his work and his unique style.

Each painting that Antinori makes is supposed to look as though it was generated by a computer. He first starts using a live model and illustrates his work using colors and charcoals. Once he completes his drawing, he will digitalize it and put it into photoshop where the pixelated image is created. Antinori talked about his process and how he never loses sight of the original image.

“My digital figure illustrations first begin conventionally. I work with a live model in a pose that is visually compelling. I use traditional media with special consideration for the model and once completed, I digitalize the image,” Antinori said. “I then manipulate the layers on photoshop into duplicate transparent layers and once those resolve the image turns into overlapping pixels, but I can still never lose sight of the original image.”

Antinori has been teaching fine art for almost 50 years on both the high school and collegiate levels. His Glen Head home studio school The North Shore Art Academy has been offering class for over 20 years, teaching residents his use of technology to create art. Antinori urges residents who view his artwork to get close to his work to capture the full effect of his work.

“I have been a fine arts instructor for the past 50 years for both college and high school students and my technique is specifically designed to make it look like it was produced by a computer,” Antinori said. “I urge exhibition viewers to optimize their experience by getting extremely close to my work, so as to engulf their entire visual fields with the tiny pixels of color and light.”

Antinori’s work has been on the walls of the Sea Cliff Arts Council since the beginning of November and will continue to hang until Jan. 15. His lecture at the Arts Council gave residents some insight into how he creates his unique style of art. Noelle Fiallo-Evans, the Chief Creative Officer of the Arts Council, said that these talks with the artists are important to teaching the community different technique’s and styles of artists.

“Having community members come out exposes them to different techniques, different kinds of backgrounds of artists, and gives them to ask questions about what they are learning,” Fiallo-Evans said. “We invite all the featured artists to do it and It’s a good opportunity for the artists to explain their work further, rather than, if the community members are just viewing it at a at an Open Gallery, hours or at an opening.”