Using Apple products like the iPhone or iPod touch for painting is not necessarily a new artistic phenomenon. British artist David Hockney famously made headlines last summer with his iPhone paintings (the coverage featured Hockney, in his 70s, comically seated in front of an iPhone on a miniature easel), which quickly found their way to the Tate Gallery and the Royal Academy in London, among other places. Then there was artist Jorge Colombo, whose iPhone finger paintings have graced the covers of The New Yorker and are sold as prints on 20×200. We’ve observed all the hullaballoo around iPhone paintings with ample skepticism, but there’s something about the iPad—with it’s larger format and higher resolution screen, higher processing power, more robust apps, and greater capacity for detail—that lends itself to creating works that are more refined, and potentially elevating the Apple tablet to a legitimate artistic tool.We recently came across the above video from Brooklyn-based artist David Kassan, filmed last week as a three-hour live stream from the artist’s studio. The resulting 7-minute clip documents Kassan’s painting in real-time and exposes the intricacies of his “finger painting” process. In fact, there’s something about watching the painting unfold before your eyes, about the working process itself—the artist’s ability to zoom in on areas to add detail or shading, to seamlessly choose and blend colors—that has us convinced that iPad painting is no joke and possesses the possibility to rise above a “techie gimmick” to become a respected medium. Kassan’s painting rivals anything we’ve seen done with paint or pastels in terms of aesthetics, and at first glance, one might not even realize it’s a digital painting.Do you think iPad painting is more than just a passing fad? Share your thoughts below.
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