Putting history through a Photoshop filter

Giacomo Carmagnola packed up the pencils and blank canvases, and instead opted to innovate using digital tools and an online platform. “I’m completely absorbed by glitch art. I’ve always been attracted to its aesthetics; I’m not talking about philosophy or higher concepts, but just its plain visual pleasure,” says the Italian-born artist. Previously, writers H.P. Lovecraft and Carlos Castaneda have caught his creative attentions, although his most recent work fuses symbolic photographs and figures from history with a good dose of Photoshop. From the burning monk in “Saigon” to Jesus’s crucifixion in “Meltchrist” – the digital artist combines the old and new to create a symbolic modern image. “I see these images as an alternative beauty. I find it extremely fascinating how the same image can change so much by keeping its original 'skeleton'. Of course they’re also visually impactful. But before this, I find them simply beautiful.“ Having grown up in Italy, a country that is characterised by Christianity, begs the question if Giacomo's attraction to art symbolising the sacred and profane is down to his childhood surroundings? He explains: “I don’t think that being born in Italy influenced me in any way; I mean, every other country would have been the same for me. The Internet helped 'open my mind.' I had something like an ‘image overload’, which then permitted me to express my ideas.”