For folks of a certain generation, the introduction to the wider world of art, technology and digital entertainment came through the grade school computer lab. Edutainment and tool suites for children were the talk of the playground, but the god emperor of software was Kid Pix. To honor the influence of these introductory computers, and a rare female 17th century Baroque painter, artist Cat Graffam reproduced Artemisia Gentileschi’s 1620 work Jael and Sisera through Craig Hickman’s Kid Pix Studio Deluxe from 1998.
“This version of Kid Pix Studio is so nostalgic and important to me,” says Graffam in the video. “It was extremely formative for growing my love of technology.”
In their insightful and meditative series, Graffam undertakes the recreation of famous works through unlikely brushes. The grotesque horrors of Goya’s Saturn discovered through Mario Paint. Vermeer’s tender Milkmaid on DSi homebrew. Exhausting THQ’s infamous uDraw peripheral to its absolute limits for Edward Hopper’s famed Nighthawks.
Reminiscing on the history of Gentileschi, the liberties taken by a 1978 restoration and the ever evolving relationship between technology and fine art, Graffam explains why Jael and Sisera is a singularly important work. With considerations to the literal torture Gentileschi endured following her own sexual assault, the depth she gives the provocative violence rendered on canvas carries a timeless, righteous vindication.
“She used this piece as a powerful catharsis from the violence she was a victim of, reclaiming what power she could through art,” says Graffam. “It gives me chills.”
After five days and only 112 colors through an art suite best remembered for zany sound effects and broken, Graffam was able to render a rather stunning piece of digital, but anachronistic, art. Graffam displays discipline greater than my own. Not just for rigging decades old hardware for modern capture, or the painterly skills to accomplish such loving tributes, but for not immediately clicking Kid Pix’s explosion eraser to watch the whole masterpiece go up in cartoon ripples.
