After looking around for an artist that uses digital media to "trick the eye into believing" I fell upon the work of James G. Respess. His story is fairly interesting he is a jack of all trades from Pacific Beach, California. A PhD in Molecular Biology with a huge interest in the arts as well during his earlier years. in 1996 Respess became a full time digital artist. His subject matter is historic California settings, but what I like is he has a way of completely fooling the eye. Long Black Veil is fairly obvious in that took two different photographs of the same woman in a cemetery with different filtering through photoshop and laid a photo of a bar scene with her sitting on a bar stool behind the scene almost framed. Pretty sure he was listening to Johnny Cash's Long Black Veil when he did this, it's about a married woman that goes to visit her lovers grave. I like the fact that this photo fools the mind into thinking it's shot on one or two angles when if you look closely there are probably 4-5 shots that comprise it. With the second photo that has been digital enhances Spirits in the sunset. If you look closely you can see the outlines of the spirits when you look into the sunset. This photo really tricks the viewer into having to look for the illusion that he has created. If I hadn't read the title of the piece i would never have paid attention to the outlines in the sunset. Respess has succeeded in not really fooling the viewer, but more making them work to see the imagery he has laid out in his work. There is a lot to his design elements and I think those are the things that can be pointed out to the viewer.
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