The intellectual underpinnings of art evolve with the material employed in its creation and artists are responsible for the evolution of both. While the exploration and exploitation of materials is one tendency of art, if form and content are not inextricably interwoven, the art created runs the risk of becoming pretentious or purely decorative and thus frivolous. The current exhibition at Abu Dhabi's Ghaf Art Gallery called “Digital Harmony,” the first show of exclusively Emirati digital artists, is exemplary of all of the above. Not only a display of computer-manipulated digital photography, the show includes examples of digital “painting,” a technique by which images are produced with computerized drawing tools. It is a display of both technology and artists in transition, some of the fruits of which are successful and some are not. Using computers to create artistic images is still a relatively new technology, one that has been used most successfully in the graphic arts that enhance primarily advertising and film making. The tools were designed for artists working in those fields and that may be the reason that a lot of computer art appears illustrative rather than a statement in and of itself. Curated by Sumayyah Al-Suwaidi, the show at Ghaf includes not only her own work but that of five other artists at varying stages of their careers. For many of the artists, it is their first time to be exhibited publicly, and creating without formal criticism means that they are creating purely from their own resources, a situation that is important but which tends to foster the kind of naivete that is apparent in some of their work. Saeed Al-Madani's “Deep Reminiscence” displays a keen sense of composition and the possibilities of the technology in its depiction of a woman's face, her head and neck wrapped in a headscarf. It is a moving image in and of itself but the inclusion of a solitary tear emerging from her left eye is distracting and seems like a superfluous element aimed solely at eliciting emotion. Rather than left to contemplate the unique communicative value of the human face, we are forced to wonder about the source of the tear. It brings a pretentiousness to the work and ultimately serves to trivialize the power of the face. As four of the five artists represented in the show are women, it is unsurprising that the human subjects of the works are all women. Most of those women appear deeply contemplative, forlorn. Some are severely distorted, their heads large and tapering down to pointed chins. In Saeed Al-Madani's triptych, his female subject resembles a creature from the sea, her hair a combination of shells and apparently seaweed, her body decorated with white, shell-like patterns. Most of the works are printed on paper and have qualities of photographic prints. Some, however, such as those by Zainab Al- Junaibi are digital photographs that have been printed on canvas, resulting in the texture of the canvas resembling the pixels of digital photography. It serves as a subtle comment on the contrivance of digital “painting,” even though her works are actually digital photographs. Also of interest are some of the more abstract photographs that explore form and composition through close-ups of the natural world. Of course, digital techniques can serve traditional concerns as witnessed by Alia Al-Suwaidi's montages of stylized Arabic calligraphy and images of traditionally dressed Arab men, either in close-up or in the form of a photo posted collage-like in the image. In many of the figurative works, however, it appears that the newer artists could take the maxim “less is more” to heart. Many of the images are overwrought; both emotionally and technically, and for that reason seem forced, as if reaching too hard for something that can be expressed more forcefully through subtlety rather than via a blatant rendering. The most accomplished work on display is that made by al Suwaidi and Jalal Luqman,who is part owner of Ghaf Gallery and whose works are on display in an upstairs room at the gallery. Luqman's work displays some of the best and the worst of all the work on display. His images range from a gargoyle-like image that belongs on the album cover for some old-school heavy metal band to subtly moving portraits such as “Behind the Door,” which displays an emotional texture that matches the texture portrayed on the surface of the print. Digital photography just like digitally reproduced music does have some inherent drawbacks. Although the technology has advanced significantly, it still does not match the nuanced warmth of a printed photograph. It is a cold medium, at least as it is practiced by most of the artists in the Ghaf show. The light necessary to capture a photograph seems to have a complement in the light used to produce a print. It is up to the artist to discover how best to interweave the qualities of digital photography with the appropriate intellectual content. The fact that there are enough emiratis working in the medium to stage this show is an indication that there is, at least, movement in that direction. __
