A young kid sits in a room in East Detroit. His face flickers from the static on a glowing television. The only light in the room is provided by a pixelated representation of a South American adventurer swinging over unexplained sinkholes in the jungle deep. An obsession is being fed meanwhile an art form is unexpectedly being born. Pixel art.

If you played the Atari 2600 like I did then you probably have a subconscious admiration and attraction to the heavily oversimplified and minimalist pixel art. It has really picked up speed and people have jumped the approach from 2 dimensions to full blown 3D sculptures and photographic representations.

The term pixel art was first published by Adele Goldberg and Robert Flegal of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1982 however the art form started about ten years prior.

Aldus Superpaint

SuperPaint was a pioneering graphics program and framebuffer computer system developed by Richard Shoup at Xerox PARC in 1972-73. SuperPaint was among the earliest uses of computer technology for creative works and in turn one of the original processes that utilized pixels to create artwork.

Traditional work – the unintentional pixel

The use of small squares to create full bodied works of art has been around a long time. Props when props is due.

Cross Stitching

Beadwork

Mosaics

*check out my full post on mosaics here

The Digital jump

Slowly pixels have crept into our lives through gaming consoles, television and computer programs.

Video Games

Witness protection

Photoshop and other bitmap-based image editors.

The Cultural Bridge

Most things that infiltrate out daily lives in either work or play eventually build and cross a cultural bridge into the art world. It is the job of the artist to take the commonly accepted elements of life, flip and twist them to see where the boundaries are, if any. Lets see what’s good.

eBoy

The king of this pixel game.

Micheal Lau

Vinyl toy originator. Love this guy.

Jean-Yves Lemoigne

Incredible work.

Rubikcubism
Rubix Cube enabled sculptures

Shawn Smith

More incredible pixel sculpting.

3 Square
Pixels in paint.

8BitBuddy V01
Pixels rendered in 3d digital

Pixel Art Tattoos

That’s true love.

Pixelcouch

*a few submissions from my dude, Chris Black…

Peter Buechler

Adam Connely

You just can’t stop human ingenuity. Always pushing the boundaries even within the confines of a tiny colored square. Crazy right?

Got any more solid examples? Hit me.

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