The humdrum of the iPad’s use is great for emails, taking notes, watching videos and listening to music. But using iPads to create art? Now that is something new and extraordinary.
Internationally renowned artist Sheila Elias, who is known for her paintings and photography, has taken her talents to the iPad with her latest series, ‘iPaint on my iPad’. Spreading her infectious talent and energy around the world, Sheila held exhibitions across a myriad amounts of Apple Stores around the World: Santa Monica, California, Lincoln Center, New York, Aventura Mall, Miami, and IFC apple store in Hong Kong, to name a few. The iPad series has also been exhibited at the Art Basel in Hong Kong, the California Heritage Museum, Rosenthal Fine Arts in Chicago, and the Mayson Gallery in New York. According to Visionary Art Trends, Sheila has been compared to David Hockney, one of Britain’s most innovative and famous artists.
Sheila has combined her talents of painting, printmaking, sculptures and photography and has developed a new form of communication using digital media—with just the touch a finger and an iPad, a natural feat no artist has truly ever done quite like she has. She says, “My art, whether it is photography, sculpture, or paintings, has always been a visual interpretation of my internal landscape, which is significantly influenced by external landscapes. Therefore, this collection of work is an indirect reflection of my colorful, turbulent home, Miami.” Miami, where multi-cultural history and the future clash on a daily basis, is a luminous kaleidoscope of raw, sincere emotions and harsh realities; urban tension mixed with profound beauty, compassion and optimism. Evidence of this interpretation can be found in the canvases of “iPaint on my iPad.”
Using a touch screen canvas, the tech inclined artist uses the iPad as part of a larger method that integrates digital art and painting to develop images that hang on the walls of the most exquisite galleries. She continues, ““Techne Revelation” is a new technological vision that I am really excited about I have been painting on my iPad since 2010. The iPad differs from traditional media with its immediate, experimental effects. I believe it also stretches one’s mental capacity because the apps have limitations, and one has to work within those perimeters. It is a new medium, which is refreshing for a seasoned artist. I enlarged abstract shapes to take on mysterious, unnatural forms. I painted them without physical tools, by using my finger.”
Elias’ series was featured at NYC Mayson Gallery as well as the GRAY AREA Instagram Project, along with the Whitney’s studio party. The shift in art trends is being pioneered by Sheila Elias and other big artists are soon to follow. The younger generation has been drawn to the fad due to the fact that millennials are overtaking the digital space and using it in daily life. The most impressive part is that Sheila’s work across the globe including hanging in the Louvre and at NYC Lincoln Center.
More about Sheila Elias:
Chicago born, Sheila graduated from the city’s renowned Art Institute of Chicago and has since managed to establish herself as one of the most important and original artists of the decade. Growing up in Chicago she was surrounded by the strong architecture of Mies Van de Rohe and as a very small child was struck by Matisse colorful artwork. Her works have been featured in exhibitions and galleries coast to coast and accorded international acclaim as well. Her paintings hang in such disparate places as Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, FL; Frost Art Museum, Miami, FL; The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, FL; Kunsan Contemporary Museum, Korea; Nova Scotia Museum, Nova Scotia, Canada as well as many private collector’s homes.
