Digital Artist – Quayola ✔Certified
Pleasant Places (2015) Creativity🟦+ Impact🟪: 88%
Quayola’s Pleasant Places is a single-channel digital video (color, sound) running 28 minutes in loop, created in 2015. Titled after the first series of landscape prints produced in Holland in the 17th century, the work consists of a series of digital paintings exploring the boundary between representation and abstraction. Inspired by Vincent van Gogh, Quayola returned to the same Provence countryside 125 years after Van Gogh painted there, using ultra-high-definition footage from Luberon and Parc des Alpilles national parks. Working with cinematographer James Medcraft and sound designer Simone Lalli, Quayola captured landscapes with ultra-high-definition digital cinema cameras, microphones, lasers, and long-range 3D scanners. Through custom software and algorithms for image analysis and manipulation, the detailed texture of foliage is reduced to two-dimensional masses veering towards abstraction. Trees and shrubs moved by strong mistral winds serve as datasets to generate new computational paintings. As outlines blur, nature becomes dense and almost impenetrable, suspended between representation and abstraction, between the depth of natural scenery and the surface of the screen. The work premiered November 7, 2015, at Glow Festival Eindhoven on a massive 12-meter wide projection. Commissioned by GLOW with support from BKKC and Foundation Van Gogh Brabant during the 2015 Van Gogh Year, the installation has since toured worldwide and been exhibited at North Carolina Museum of Art, University of Michigan Museum of Art, and is held in the collection of Allen G. Thomas Jr.
Here’s how this rating breaks down using the Consistent Multi-Criteria Rubric method:
Technical Skill and Execution (25% of total score): 9/10 = 2.25 points Exceptional mastery of custom software programming, ultra-high-definition cinematography, and algorithmic image manipulation creating seamless transition between representation and abstraction.
Composition and Design (25% of total score): 8/10 = 2.00 points Strong compositional balance maintaining contemplative static framing while orchestrating gradual transformation from photographic realism to abstract geometries.
Originality and Creativity (20% of total score): 10/10 = 2.00 points Groundbreaking fusion of Van Gogh’s vision with computational processes, creating entirely new visual language exploring how machines observe nature differently from humans.
Color Use and Harmony (15% of total score): 8/10 = 1.20 points Effective computational palette evolving from naturalistic Provence colors to abstracted masses while maintaining atmospheric coherence.
Emotional Impact and Expression (15% of total score): 9/10 = 1.35 points Powerful emotional resonance creating sense of technological sublime, paying homage to Western art’s modern tradition of landscape abstraction while proposing alternative modes of vision.
Total: 88%
