Art and Technology Pioneer Eleanor Kent Dies

_{Crux, knitted wool mounted on board, 1994}

Eleanor Kent, an artist who innovated methods of making art from new technologies, died recently at the age of 83. The San Francisco native started drawing and painting seriously in the 1950s and continued to branch out into other media over the years, such as color xerox, computer graphics, and even EL wire, as these technologies emerged.

From the artist’s website:

Working with Bay Area Figurative masters helped Kent form a solid art foundation, which she used to explore other mediums and forms of expression in the following decades. In the 1970s, she painted on fabric and t-shirts and used color copiers to create prints. Throughout the 1980s, Kent explored developing computer technology and graphic systems as art tools and helped found Ylem, a tech art group. During the ‘90s, Kent started knitting the fractals and other mathematical images she saw on computers, and today crochets body jewelry using electro-luminescent wire, which surrounds the wearer with light. She paints and continues to work for the creative use of technology and a sharing of information as a way of peacefully exploring our existence.

Not only did she make many extraordinary works, she also helped develop the concept of exploring new technologies as a means of artistic expression, which has come to define so much contemporary art production.

_{Tahoe Water, color xerox, 1981}

_{New Suns, cibachrome print from Apple lle, 1983}

_{Spiral Fractal, knitted wool mounted on board, 1988}

_{Magic Carpet, knitted wool, 1993}

_{Rose Coral, hyperbolic crochet e-l wire, 2007}

A public celebration of her life will be held at 5 p.m. Aug. 7 at SOMArts in San Francisco.

[via Prothetic Knowledge]