In 2003, Ballistic Media, a new publishing company dedicated to producing high-quality tomes for the computer arts community, released a CG book titled EXPOSÉ 1. At first glance, EXPOSÉ comes across as a well-conceived product. Its cover is visually compelling and invites the reader to pick it up, settle back and dive in to discover secrets held within. As an animator, computer graphics artist and friend of a few of the those involved with EXPOSÉ, I was excited for the opportunity to take a closer look at the book, and share my opinion. While attending the University of California, Santa Barbara, I can remember having frequent arguments with other art students about the validity of “computer” art. The common opinion was that a true artist didn’t use a machine; they used their hands. For some odd reason (which I still don’t quite understand), the use of a mechanical object to paint, sculpt or manipulate photography wasn’t true art. Generation of “Art,” for these people, had to be tactile. The artist had to physically touch and manipulate the work in order for their ideas and intentions to be somehow mystically transferred and embedded into the piece of art itself.

It was only a matter of time before traditional artists began seeing the computer simply as another tool to produce their work, just as they had with photography and film. As computers and software have become cheaper, people are able to take advantage of all they have to offer. Because of this, increasing numbers of artists are beginning to transfer their traditional skills in painting and sculpting to packages such as Photoshop and Maya. As you can see in the pages of EXPOSÉ, artists are taking to computers like a bear from Yosemite takes to barbeque leftovers.

An interesting side effect to this abundance of artistic technology is that anyone can use it to create art — or not. I think we’ve all experienced computer art, which reminds us of those paintings you see in second-rate hotels that you sometimes stay in while you’re driving in an unknown town. The type of hotels that have carpet that goes halfway up the walls, air conditioners that don’t work and a smell that you just can’t quite locate. You know the paintings I’m talking about, the ones that you look at and think, “Okay, the person who made this obviously understands the concept of pushing paint around a canvas… but… is it a tree? OH! A tiger! No, wait, a waterfall? Ah, a Zeppelin!”

That’s going to happen with any artistic medium. You will always get a broad range of quality, from the supreme masters to your Aunt Enid, who’s incredibly sweet, but, please, Lord, keep her away from the Windsor Newton oils!

What Ballistic Media has done with EXPOSÉ is to try and show only the best in computer graphics art from the past few years. In order to do this, they brought together an advisory board made up of a number of talented artists in the community, some who also contributed their own art to the book. They then poured through the 1,400 submissions and separated the selected works into a series of categories: Architecture, Character in Repose, Character in Action, Environment, Mechanical/Still Life, Transport and Visual Effects. Each of these categories contains a winner, and there’s also an overall “Grand Master.”

When I saw who was chosen as Grand Master, I experienced one of those “well… duh!” moments. Craig Mullin’s work is, simply put, astounding. His mastery of the brush stroke, form, lighting, composition and mood is a joy to look at. Mullins has been an inspiration for a number of artists over the years, including myself. In fact, I have a random assortment of his paintings that cycle through on my desktop at work. Every 15 minutes my background automatically changes to a different image of his. Sorry, Craig: I hope that’s not too weird or anything.