PEMBROKE — An egg yolk, a weed and spilled paint were the winning ingredients for The University of North Carolina at Pembroke art major Janet Davis in the SCAN.IT Exhibition in Brighton, England.
Three of the seven digital art works Davis submitted were selected for exhibition in Brighton’s Gallery 40 on Aug. 2 through Aug. 19. A photographer by training, the senior art major created these images with a scanner.
“I scanned them at very high resolution, 800-to-4,800 dpi (dots per inch),” Davis said. “With a scanner, you can print very large images, and the detail is incredible.”
A Knoxville, Tenn., native and Army wife who began her art education at a Virginia community college, Davis is a photographer and videographer, but at UNCP, she is branching out into other art forms. She hopes to enroll in a master of fine arts program after graduation in May 2013.
“I am a photographer by trade, and I had used this technique before, but not like this,” she said. “I’ve learned some new things about creating digital art at UNCP, although I was already pretty proficient in (Adobe) Photoshop.”
In her final year at UNCP, Davis is taking her second digital art class from John Labadie. He has watched her transformation.
“One of the fascinating things about Janet is that she is transitioning from professional photography to fine art,” Labadie said. “She has been very productive, and her work is getting seen in a lot of places.
“We’ve had some long conversations about art. She’s headed in a good direction and has validated the reasons she chose to come back to school to study art.”
Davis’s work is also entered in the Adobe Design Achievement Award competition. A collage she created from 15 photographs of an abandoned Fayetteville textile mill was a semifinalist in the contest when this article was written.
“Getting into the semifinals of the Adobe competition is very exciting because it is very competitive,” Davis said. “My entry was number 5,137, and I don’t know how many more there were.”
Davis said UNCP’s Art Department is a creative environment for learning.
“I like the small classes, and the professors are working artists who teach, which is invaluable,” she said. “They really push you. I appreciate that I have developed as an artist here.”
The artist is considering several options for future study, including printmaking, digital art and mixed media. There is one other thing Davis wants the public to know about her work.
“I don’t think people appreciate how much work goes into making art,” she said with a smile. “I probably spent 25 to 30 hours on the collage for the Adobe contest. Art students work very hard.”
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