Greg Noblin is a gallery represented photography-based digital illustrator living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. His work revolves around telling slightly vague vignettes where the viewer has as much to say about the meaning as he does. With a sense of vintage nostalgia, Greg photographs each element needed to build the narrative in each image. These digital images are then printed over multiple sheets of photo paper and stitched together, then mounted onto large wooden panel where paints and gel mediums are applied.

From the Artist... Daydreams and impossibilities are commonplace in my mind.  When a scene or story jumps into my consciousness I feel compelled to act and collect source material. Once all the images are photographed and digitally cut up and the vision I had in my head begins to emerge on the screen I become elated. When I see with my eyes what I saw in my mind there is a connection I make to my childhood memories of imagination. Even then the image needs a soul.

Using textures in my images helps me connect with past imaginations. The use of texture gives me a sense of nostalgia, inviting warmth, intrigue, and breathes life into the pictures. With this in mind I wanted to add more texture to a finished print. The application of gel medium to a flat print further developed a connection between the image and myself by making the textures more alive and the story more real. These textures also create a sense of longevity through a nostalgia or vintage sensibility.

I incorporate a method of tying the organic and the rigid by stitching smaller prints in a grid to create the larger organic form of the story in the image. By using this method each piece is a creation of natural organic forms and textures juxtaposed against a constructivist grid. A process I call Panelism. The result is a meshing of the artificial and the organic. This process also connects with the overall process of deconstruction, reconstruction. I photograph all the elements in my images. These elements are then cut out digitally (deconstructed) then put back together to form a story or narrative (reconstructed). Then the image is divided into even squares and printed out over many sheets (deconstructed) and then physically put back together to reform the entire image (reconstruction). It's a method of communicating our human experience throughout the entire process.

Still there needs to be some level of struggle to represent my life experience. This is why there’s a subdued and often obscured sense of something unresolved and unsettling within many of the images. While some seem free and whimsical there’s things left to outside forces. Others express the desire for independence, a battle to overcome something. These are expressions of experiences we all share, a commonality. And sometimes, a visual irony.

As my work is based in photography it means there is an issue of reproducing the same work. What I have come to feel comfortable with is producing, if desired, multiple sizes of each image. What I will not do is make the same image into a panel of the same size. For example, I may initially produce a 36"x48" panel. If someone is interested I may produce something at a different size. The size difference must also be noticeable or the orientation must be different. This means from an original 36"x48" I may produce additional panels of the same image at, say, 30"x30", 48"x60", or something drastically different. Also, I do have a "small batch" edition of 5 that I do make in addition to all the other stuff. These are 18"x24" panels, again in an edition of 5, done in the same process. I used to self produce limited edition prints (of 9) on top of all this, however, beginning in 2018 I have decided to democratize this aspect and make all future images open editions, available in many locations on the internet.