Paul J. Theriault

Region: Northeast

City / State: New Haven, CT

Recently, it has been my practice to begin paintings by applying oil paint directly to a scanner bed. The underside of the glass is scanned and imported into my computer. After this initial scan, the painted scanner is itself scanned by an additional device mounted atop the original. Using digital imaging software, I then merge these two files (the relief of the exposed paint and the flattened underside of the glass bed).

This process allows for freedom from the datum and pixels associated with digital art, while remaining close to the machine. In addition to the scanner paintings, I also work with digitally constructed imagery exported from my computer as large scale inkjet prints. The prints are either large-format or stitched together from smaller individual prints. These images are frequently subjected to various surface applications— collage, grounding mediums, urethane, wax, and, in more recent instances, paint. The finished works are digital in their initial conception, yet plastically manipulated.