Digitalis: Exhibition at Muzeul Naţional Secuiesc (Sekler National Museum), Sfantu-Gheorghe, Romania. 2–23 May 2008.

In Digitalis, the practice element of Key’s doctoral research (Grids: Painting in a Dialogue with the Digital, Loughborough University, 2008) was exhibited in international and national exhibitions, with a publication. As a group-show Digitalis interrogated painting in the expanded field (the exhibition incorporates video, photography, collage and painting). Five artist/researchers from HE institutions (Loughborough University, Manchester Metropolitan and the University of Derby), were selected by artist/curator Dr John Rimmer - who made the ACE bid for publication funding and to take the show to the Muzeul Naţional Secuiesc (Sekler National Museum) in Romania (2008). The exhibition then toured to Gallery Oldham (2010) in the UK. Key’s doctoral research used a method of evolving and translating languages from digital applications to the field of physical painted works. Using a grid system to make the work, Key developed her imagery through a deconstructive method (using Photoshop) that appropriates textual elements into ‘abstract’ forms. Digitalis considers different methods for the realization of contemporary painting, where there is an exploration of relationships between digital media applications and the traditions of painting. The possibilities offered by digital media applications to the established languages of painting, considers abstract/figurative elements as mutable forms, unstable in their reading. Many works in the show share an ambiguity in terms of appropriated imagery and their subsequent transformation (using digital means) into some form of expression in contemporary painting. Digitalis stresses the interplay between the analogue and the digital that pervades painting practice today and uses the hand and machine to explore the increasingly indeterminate topography of the physical/ virtual, public/private, and mind/body (Dr John Rimmer, 2008). Key’s doctoral research (2003-2008) has followed a sustained path (2008 to present), working with figurative elements and formal painterly grounds. The work continues to explore uses of appropriation, ambiguity of image and transformation through painting methodologies.