“My love of abstract art began when I was at Art School in WA in the mid 1970’s. The art of Cezanne and Kandinsky and the Modernist Movement inspired me to develop my own style of abstract art.
The challenge I set myself forty years ago was to discover how to compose non-representational artworks using only basic visual elements – such as colour, line, shape, texture, space and form. My dream was to create something entirely new – imaginary yet credible. Suspending belief is probably the best way to view my work.
The computer has played a major role in the development of my art style. Until the late 1980’s I worked in a variety of traditional mediums then began experimenting with making bitmap images on an early model Macintosh computer. I was excited by the technology and instantly saw its potential to artists even though the images I’d done were fairly crude. At that time colour graphics programs were still in their infancy but by 1997 when I invested in my first Macintosh colour computer, Adobe Photoshop 1.0 was included in my purchase. I now lease the entire Adobe Creative Suite and that includes any graphics applications I could ever want.
In 1997, there was little opportunity to learn the programs other than through purchased video tutorials. My solution was to use a trial and error method which I still use today even though online tutorials are readily available. My design work became a great means to learn about Photoshop and vice versa. The designs required me to find ways to illustrate ideas and that research would in turn inspire new ideas for design. It is likely that this method shaped the eventual look of my artwork.
Until 2016 I continued to use both traditional and digital means to compose my work, but in May of that year I realised many of the design ideas could only be created by digital means. After a short time exclusively working on computer I knew I would not return to the traditional means or methods of artmaking. I still use pen and pencil for visual diary work, and a mix of media to create the surface treatments for the digital work, but I now call myself an Abstract Digital Artist.”

Rosemary Collard: behance