Last night we were watching another beautiful sunset and talking. Tony did a great post on his blog Art and Zen of Design and I volunteered to post it as an exhibition for the Techno-Impressionist Museum but he said he was the curator and I was the docent. At first I objected to that title but quickly realized that's what I do on this blog, explain Tony's art.

Everyone has a camera these days and the new cameras that are coming onto the market practically take the picture for you. Photography has become a commodity. And so Tony, who was a professional photographer, has made the photograph not the end result of his work but simply the first step. His darkroom, his enlarger, developing tanks and all the physical equipment have been replaced by virtual media. What he used to do in the dark room is now known as post processing.

Tony's first action as an artist is to create the image using a camera. This is analogous to making a pencil sketch on a canvas or a piece of paper. The image is going to under go many different transitions and result in many, many variations. Tony's art covers a wide range of styles because technology enables him to go down many, many different paths as he explores how to make that original image more interesting.

This is a big difference between Tony and other artists. He is driven by what interests him. He is fascinated by what you can do to an image using technology. As in many things in life you have to know when to stop. One has to careful and to be able to see the difference between an interesting image and a cheap computer trick.

There have been artists who have become famous when someone who was a trend setter or influential in the world of art said this is great art and everyone just said yes. And there have been great artists like Van Gogh who never who knew the fame they came to achieve. I have always felt that Tony is more like Van Gogh in that it will take time for him to be recognized as the great artist he is. We are motivated to keep going by the fact that Tony has had solo exhibits and they have also been reviewed. We never do juried shows. We want the people who see the art to be the judges. What better acceptance than to have somebody buy a picture?

When people who have never seen Tony's work come to our house for dinner we watch as they become more and more engaged by his art. This is in part due the tremendous range of his work. There is always something that appeals to everyone.

When we put together his first shows we spent hours and hours picking the "best" images to show. But we've come to realize that we can't predict what people will like and so his shows have always covered a wide range. We simply pick the ones we like. You can see the range that I'm talking about by going to the Techno-Impressionist Museum and looking through the Exhibits which are found on the left side of the page. (Don't miss the shows on the right which are some interesting ways to display art on the web.)

Some people say Tony Karp has no style and that just makes him smile. This range of styles is known as Techno-Impressionism and Tony Karp is the first Techno-Impressionist.

In the future, people will look back on his body of work and are going to amazed at his range and depth of his styles. There will be other Techno-Impressionists but few will have explored and produced so much variation at the intersection of art and technology. Tony has been able to combine the skill that made him an award winning photographer and a brilliant designer of computer systems and create some amazing and interesting art.

I hope I am a good docent and that what I say about the images, how Tony works and his style of Techno-Impressionism helps in your appreciation of this art.

Here are some Techno-Impressionist sunsets, all by Tony Karp.