For decades, Einhorn had been making a living scripting computer programs, while painting as a hobby. At some point, he began drawing mathematical designs by hand, then pasting them together. The designs became so complicated, though, that Einhorn decided to program them on the computer, but was limited by low resolution, a 16-color palette, limited computer memory, and poor printer quality. Later, the artist was finally able to incorporate his programming techniques with Adobe Systems' Photoshop graphics package to produce the effects he desired. Rather than using self-generating computer algorithms such as fractals, Einhorn scripts specific directions that instruct the computer how to apply color information.
"I was able to write every pixel in more than 16 million colors, based on 256 degrees of red, blue, and green," says Einhorn. "Color is the name of the game, and with Fortran, color can be explained with numbers. Exact shadings and gradients can be obtained with accuracy in ways that could never be done by hand.
"My purpose," says Einhorn, "is to create art that nobody has ever seen-worlds that do not truly exist and objects that are unreal." More information about the artist and his work can be found at www.earleinhorn.com. -Karen Moltenbrey
· Evolution symbolizes birth, balance, and the Chinese principle of yin and yang. According to the artist, the circular pattern and color nuances would have been extremely difficult to accomplish by hand.
· Heat contains more than 1 million colors, yet each color change is smooth and subtle.
· 2001, so named because it reminded the artist of the obelisk in the film of the same title, appears to assume the shape of a gown-clad woman.
· Enchanted Pool was constructed using Fortran subroutines that increased and decreased various color intensities throughout the color scale.
· Alien 3 was born from a program that created small, individual patterns, which make up a larger circular formation that resembles an alien's head. Once the image was generated, the artist added a set of lips in Photoshop for effect.
· Nine contains the reoccurring image of the number 8, all of which are connected by a series of nine spokes. The background was created with programmable twisting and bending instructions.