New digital artworks by Leegte and Van den Dorpel reflect on recently discovered Fernand Léger painting
New digital artworks by Leegte and Van den Dorpel reflect on recently discovered Fernand Léger painting
The Triton Collection Foundation has asked the two contemporary artists Harm van den Dorpel (1981) and Jan Robert Leegte (1973), to each reflect on the recently discovered painting "Les fumées sur les toits" by Fernand Léger (1881-1955) with a new digital artwork.
Both artists belong to the avant-garde of contemporary digital art. The two new artworks, Frames (Jan Robert Leegte, 2022) and Fernand (Harm van den Dorpel, 2022) will be on display at the Kröller-Müller Museum from 19 November 2022 during the exhibition "Fernand Léger en de daken van Parijs" at Analogous to Léger.
Generative digital artworks
Fernand Léger’s fascination with contrasts in colour, line and form were always accompanied by a passion for contemporary life and modern technology, for everything current and dynamic. The artists Harm van den Dorpel and Jan Robert Leegte share these fascinations. Where Léger worked with the materials of his time, paint and canvas, these contemporary artists work with digital tools, code and the blockchain, creating generative digital artworks that give us a radically new perspective on what art is and can be. Léger was a pioneer in his time with a profound influence on contemporaries and later generations of artists. Van den Dorpel and Leegte are among the avant garde of this digital age. For instance, In 2015, Harm van den Dorpel became the first artist in the world to sell his digital artwork as NFT to a museum (Museum for Applied Arts Vienna), and Leegte is among the vanguard of artists making art on the internet.
Fernand by Harm van den Dorpel
Harm van den Dorpel’s full-screen software work "Fernand" was directly inspired by Légers’ work. It shows reconstructions of the development of 25 drawings Van den Dorpel sketched freehand on the touchpad of his laptop. Each drawing gradually merges into the next, creating unexpected generative combinations and compositions in an endless stream of images.
Frames by Jan Robert Leegte
"Frames" by Jan Robert Leegte is a generative computer work. In a fixed time interval, a live computer-generated composition of frames and colour areas emerges. Each composition is unique and will never recur, for as long as the work will keep running. The work refers to Léger’s series Fumées sur les toits showing views of city rooftops. Emptiness translates this into an aesthetic of the 1990s. Using the trompe-l’oeil technique, he creates a physical illusion on screen. Shadows and light suggest form. At a subtle pace, fields of colour emerge within the composition, rising and dissipating like the mists above the structures of the city, seen through the window of the computer screen.
For more information on the Fernand Léger exhibition at Kröller-Müller Museum click here.
Fernand Léger en de daken van Parijs | Kröller-Müller
19 Nov '22 - 2 Apr '23
Images:
1. Frames, Jan Robert Leegte, (2022)
2. Fernand, Harm van den Dorpel, (2022)