MEG Miles has been the first artist to use the Naracoorte Regional Art Gallery’s Emerging Artist space.
Ms Miles is a Naracoorte local, and completed Year 12 in 2023.
She has staged 13 works of digital art in her first solo exhibition, which she prepared on an iPad using the Procreate software which is for two-dimensional art.
Meg saved up to buy an iPad at the age of 14 with the intention of exploring digital art.
She says she spent her early childhood drawing and painting in her spare time and has always been interested in art.
“It is something I have always been passionate about,” Ms Miles said.
“Being introduced to digital art a few years ago really changed my perception of art and what I could make.
“It showed me a new way of creating.”
She took art as a subject in Year 8 to 10 at Naracoorte High School, and then studied Visual Arts at Scotch College in Year 11 and 12.
For SACE she presented portfolios of 20 pages of traditional art and 40 of digital art.
Her technique is to draw a plan of an art work on paper and refine it until it is a “decent sketch.”
She then takes a photograph of the sketch and uploads it onto a blank page in the iPad program.
The process then is “like glass painting, layer on layer.”
In the program, layers can be removed and replaced or left out entirely.
For the exhibition Ms Miles has selected from works she had on hand, some for her Year 12 assignments and others done especially for the exhibition.
She has framed the works for hanging and works are for sale as prints or in frames.
“With this exhibition, I would like to show other people what digital art can do,” Ms Miles said.
Ms Miles is hoping to study 2D animation in Melbourne later in the year.
The Emerging Artist space can be found in the gallery’s hall foyer and hallway.
Artists interested in exhibiting in this space are invited to contact Bec Greening at the gallery on 0478 609 868.
