Thorns
Christopher Jeauhn Bayne
CHRISTOPHER JEAUHN BAYNE
Gartenheimstr, VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Christopher Jeauhn Bayne’s formal introduction to art was through textile design, in his home country, South Africa. After arriving in Europe in 1993, he branched out into acrylic painting followed by mixed-media techniques a few years later. In 2015, he exchanged his brushes and canvasses for digital equivalents.
His artworks are born digitally, yet they are produced industrially. On acrylic glass, aluminium, photographic paper or even on wood or textiles. Augmented reality reinforces the digital birth of the artwork and assists in the storytelling process. In effect, they come alive in front of the viewer.
Inspired by people, society, religion, history, and the natural world in general, Christopher’s work consists of many layers of imagery, which fuse to form a composite whole. Fascinated by dualism and polarity in all aspects, he creates art which blends beauty and horror, yin and yang, dark and light, pixels and dpi, to create an experience, heightened by augmented reality, in which the viewer can move between fascination and consternation.
In 2020, his work was selected by curators from the Museum of Contemporary Digital Art as well as the LumenPrize (the latter being a group of curators from the British Tate Museum and V&A Museum, London, and the Whitney Museum in New York City) to be presented at CADAF (Contemporary and Digital Art Fair) 2020.
As to his academic qualifications, Christopher holds a Master’s Degree in Creative Media Practice, with distinction, from Middlesex University in London, a Certificate in Transmedia Storytelling, from the SAE Institute of Technology Online and a Diploma in Web Design and Development, from the SAE Institute of Technology, Vienna.
My art is created digitally, yet it does not exist as pixels only. The works are chromogenic prints (photographs), but I also produce work on aluminium, wood, glass, and textiles, all of which are enhanced with augmented reality. This takes the work full circle, from a digital birth, to a physical experience, and a digital enhancement in physical space.
I am inspired by people, society, religion, history, and the natural world in general, and am fascinated by dualism and polarity, in all aspects. This tension drives my art, and is often incorporated into the production process. So it is not uncommon that I parse individual frames from videos, incorporating them into the artwork as a static image, digitally brushed, fused with other imagery, and awakened again in augmented reality.
But this poses the question: What is this art? Is it a photograph? A video? An AR art piece? Digital art? A collage? I’m still discovering those answers.
Download the free app, ARTIVIVE, to experience the augmented reality component. Go ahead! It works on screens too!