Pixels: The Art of the iPhone

Roger Guetta

Roger is a man who embraces imperfection and makes it work to his own ends. Much like Brian Eno’s ethos of accepting happy accidents at any stage of the creative process (“Honor thy mistake as a hidden intention,” says one of Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards), Roger works his images in mysterious ways, allowing form and color and thousands of pixels to collide, combine, explode, and coalesce in wondrous ways. This seemingly simple image is a great example of his process.

I love the Warholesque flatness of the red lipstick, as if silk-screened, over the black splotches that suggest a lovely curvature of her lips. And the nose is so strange: the nostrils are clearly defined, but the tip of the nose looks scarred and pitted, with an unsightly red and black smudge on the side of the tip and a strange little red eruption off to one side. It is these flaws from where the beauty and the power of the piece erupt. And the texturing with the antique paper (I think that’s what it is) is a perfect touch.

The Daily Pic sponsored by P1xels—The Fine Art of the iPhone.

Her piece Tattoo was in the show and has been in almost every show I’ve presented since. It is one of my favorite images ever. I have seen, many times, people walking through a gallery, cast a glance to a far wall where Tattoo is hanging, and make a right-angle turn and walk straight over to it. (It seems as if the OakBook tag contains all the submissions for that show, not just the final pieces. Very interesting to look at two years down the line and then look at what is being done today!)

So I noticed her work right away.

Andrea, along with a handful of other people, was instrumental in confirming my hunch/belief that we were dealing with a brand-new artistic medium back in those early days. I am grateful.

Early last year, I noticed that no pictures were coming in from Andrea any longer. I notice when this happens. I started writing her. No response. I began checking Flickr, Facebook, other sites to see if she was posting anywhere. As the days turned into weeks and then months, I grew truly concerned. I’ve had plenty of artists quit posting here for their own reasons, but usually one can find them somewhere else. But Andrea had disappeared.  I wrote to people I thought might know her whereabouts or situation. No luck.

Finally I heard from Andrea. She had been in a bad car accident. We have corresponded intermittently over the past year, but very few pictures came in. Today, out of the blue, several came in and I saw that she was on Facebook and we chatted there. She said her recovery is complete; it sounds as if it was a long and arduous path back to health. But she says she is “perfect” now. I asked her if I could do a gallery of her new pictures and she sent them to me.

I am so happy. Happy that she is healed and healthy again. And happy she is creating once again and sharing her amazing, totally unique work with us on Pixels.

I’m not going to go into why this is the {daily pic}. You can see for yourself! Look at all her beautiful pictures: graphic, sexy, bright, mysterious, dangerous, enigmatic, totally unique. I love the European feel of her work (she lives near Barcelona, which has a high concentration of iphonic artists—ones i love anyway—for some reason). I mean, I just went through the images again, proof-reading this piece. I have no words. Amazing!

Let us celebrate that Andrea is back, and well, and making her art again after her long ordeal.

Thank you, Andrea! Welcome home!

The Daily Pic sponsored by P1xels—The Fine Art of the iPhone, where Andrea’s work is available in signed, limited edition archival prints.