Anne Morgan Spalter:

In this piece, Sky of Dubai, I shot video from a helicopter to better show the scale and scope of this skyscraper and crane-filled city—and to include the sand and water that surround it. 

Although I am using video and custom software rather than brushes, I feel that these works are in the spirit of action painting movement. The end product is just one possible physical manifestation of my experiences and thought processes that are codified on the computer and realizable in any number of ways (at different scales, using projection or a screen, altering program parameters, etc.). Inspired by my background in painting (MFA RISD), math (BA Brown) and my interest in Islamic art, I use a symmetrical kaleidoscopic framework to bring order to visual complexity.

ABOUT THE SERIES: From Las Vegas to DubaiThese digital video paintings are based on footage I shot in March of 2012 in the desert cities of Las Vegas and Dubai. Both places spoke to my obsession with modern landscape and each provided compellingly unique visual detail to work with. Both cities were constructed and emerged suddenly from a desert. Each was designed with clear goals for commerce, entertainment, and lifestyle. No expense was spared in the hyper-luxurious Disney-like hotel and casino creations in Las Vegas, and, likewise, a vast fortune has been spent constructing Dubai with its iconic buildings such as the Burj Al Arab and the world's tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa. Whereas the cities of the East Coast and most of Europe have evolved over hundreds of years, these two are relatively recent, with Dubai, a city of almost two million people, being built in a mere 40 years.