The Game Dame™

Did everyone have a good Valentine’s day? I sure did. I started off as the lucky recipient of a home-cooked brunch, then, full-bellied, got taken on my first trip to The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. In addition to being a gorgeous facility with incredible art, this trip was extra special for me because artist Jeff Elrod was being featured. I’d never heard of Elrod before, but I was thankful for the introduction.

(SIDE NOTE: For some reason, these images won’t appear if you’re on IE 7 on a PC. Try it in Firefox if you have problems. Firefox is a better browser anyway.)

Jeff Elrod
Endgame, 1994
Acrylic on canvas
79 x 97 inches
Collection Mark Rosman

Elrod painted Endgame in 1994 – an important early work that gives a shout out to Abstract Expressionist Barnett Newman and Space Invaders. Like Newman, who used masking tape to make his famous zip paintings, Elrod uses tape to define space in his work. If you get close to Elrod’s gallery pieces, you can see layered textures created by removing tape from beneath dried paint.

Rather than creating artwork completely on the computer or completely on the canvas, Elrod began combining those processes in 1996. “I’m not into drawing on the computer and then sending out to have a print made of it,” says Elrod, “I’m into figuring out how to put the drawing onto a canvas so that it becomes a part of the painting history dialogue. I have to think of how I’m going to make a painting, so using a computer drawing simplifies that process … I guess I’d say I’m lazy, in a thoughtful way.”

To create his pieces, Elrod roughs out drawings on a computer screen using a simple, vector-based graphics program, then transfers it onto canvas by tracing the forms and masking out certain sections with tape to create lines and shapes. Starting his art using the computer connects Elrod to his youth and the warm and fuzzies he felt when gaming. He describes the sensation of drawing with a mouse as “physiological warmth,” saying, “I hadn’t felt that feeling in twenty years and it felt good. But I wasn’t just playing Pong; I was developing a framework for making art.”

Jeff Elrod
Pong, 2002
Acrylic on canvas
36 x 36 inches
Collection Mark Rosman

Well, keep it up Jeff Elrod. Your show rocks and I’d love to see more. If you’re near DFW and can make it out to The Modern before March 29th, 2009, do it. It’s worth seeing these pieces in person. Digital blogs don’t do them justice.

Visit The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth’s Official Site»

See more of Elrod’s work on artnet»