thiebes' photostream

Joseph Thiebes (rhymes with Phoebus) first began making digital art in about 1985 in Missoula, Montana. The early works of his childhood were created by programming computers to draw simple lines and angles repetitively to create interesting patterns. Over the course of the next nine years, he studied watercolor and geometry, photography and fractals, until at last in 1994 the digital medium caught up with him on the advent of Adobe Photoshop 2.5.

Joseph had already been an avid user of Fractint, the freeware fractal generation software, and the possibilities blossomed with the combination of these two programs. After a few weeks of working hard day and night with Photoshop, he learned enough to create his first two pieces: the Fractal Tree of Life and The U of Om, both in 1994. These have remained among the most popular of his works.

For the next couple of years, Joseph learned many techniques and became familiar with several software packages. He ultimately favored the use of two or three different programs in the creation of each piece of art, such as was done with the Fractal Tree of Life. The focus of this period in Joseph's work is indicative of exploration and discovery, both artistically and spiritually.

In 1996, there is a large volume of work as Joseph begins creating pieces that are more expressive of his visions, dreams, and life experiences, while abstracting the rote symbolism of his prior work. From 1996 until 2003, several thematic threads are apparent, but among the most prominent are themes of spiritual light, the shadow, and the feminine other.

"For a long time, I have approached my work as sculpture. Each piece will start as ten or thirty source images; some of my photography or drawings, some random clipart or photo from the internet, or a random object placed on my scanner. I see things I like, and I add them to the pile. Then layering them, and altering each one so that they fit together. This is actually forming the stone of the sculpture analogy - the layers of images are the stone, and once I piece them together by applying effects, highlighting, rotating, stretching, blurring, sharpening, distorting, pixelating... then I begin to carve by removing the things which interfere with the image. I think of it as carving stone of my own making."

Joseph has shown his work at exhibits in Long Beach and Barcelona. He lives in Portland, Oregon.