This piece, originally titled ‘Why’, was intended to express my inability to understand mass psychosis. Since puberty, I have been baffled by our collective cruelty. Pogroms, the Holodomor, fascism, state terrorism, the lust for war — you know what I’m talking about. I think I understand now. After all these years. All it’s mechanisms are triggered in real time all over the world.
‘How are you cruel?’ – fine art print on canvas 100×100 cm diagonal
What frustrates me is that by proxy, I am cruel too. I see no way around it. I am complicit through our collective cruelty. Whether I like it or not, I am personally liable for it.
I used to be able to avoid taking responsibility for that cruelty. I read about it in newspapers reporting on events in other parts of the world. I learned about it in history books about other people’s wars. I studied philosophy books about other people’s madness. But as the world gradually and inevitably changes, I find myself being sucked into a dark era. And it is becoming part of who I am.
So, ‘Why’ evolved into ‘How’. The question is no longer why, but how much of it is mine. This festive piece of typographic art is about just that.
The piece has evolved over time. It began with the word ‘Why’ written in code. While working on it, the phrase evolved into ‘Why are you cruel?’ After some iterations, it turned into ‘How are you cruel?’, which led to its final state: ‘How cruel are you?’.
Interestingly, this process reflects my dawning realisation that I am complicit.
I feel somewhat lost in today’s media culture. My workflow is erratic and irregular. Plans can take years to come to fruition and working on a piece can span weeks or even months. This does not sit well with today’s content demands.
St. Maria de Castellabate, fine art print 80 x 80 cm
This piece, for example. I started working on it in May 2025, triggered by a photograph taken by my wife in St. Maria de Castellabate during our honeymoon. My initial idea was to describe the dusk and the play of light on a classical building that is right on the beach. After the initial draft, it took me months to finish it. I had breaks of several weeks in between versions, during which time I allowed the piece to evolve slowly in my mind.
Maybe it sounds silly, but traveling from A to B like this takes time, more so then effort. It needs time to ripe. To start understanding what it needs, or wants. This process can take ages.
I find that weird. I work with digital technology, which should make creation fluent and maby even quick. But the way pieces slowly ripe makes it almost impossible to produce at a pace that modern media dictates.
St. Maria de Castellabate, thrid draft july 2025Castellabate beach, photograph by Astrid Spit-Steur 2004.
My pen-and-ink drawings, which are simple line drawings like Matisse’s, are blending with the style of vector portraits I’ve created in recent years. I’m currently working on this self-portrait.
Self portrait, digitized ink pen drawing on paper
The first stage involved recreating rough volumes by hand using vector shapes. I like this version in its own right, but it’s not quite what I’m looking for.
SoFLY – Work in progress
I made this next one after looking at watercolour landscapes. I know. It’s stupid. It doesn’t look like an aquarel landscape at all. But trust me, this is what I did after looking at watercolorings. I like this version much better. It’s not what I’m used to, which is good.
Most of the portraits I create start with a brief encounter — a moment when I cross paths with someone who catches my attention. These are not commissions; they are glimpses of people whose faces linger long after they have disappeared into the crowd.
Mickey – fine art print on canvas – 55×55 cm
I recognise a familiar disconnection in the way they carry themselves — a solitude that persists even when they’re with other people. It is their facial expressions that trigger me. The reality of illness or inner struggle is etched into their faces, visible for a brief moment to a passing stranger.
Rokende man 1 – fine art print on canvas
These portraits capture the fleeting vulnerability of awkward expressions, subtle gestures, and confused gazes. I recognise their essence: pure, vulnerable and somewhat lost. In that sense, these are portraits of all of us.
Just as in traditional printmaking, digital graphic artists create images that are transferred to paper or other materials such as metal, fabric or PVC. In digital printmaking, inks and pigments are the words I work with. My tools are code and vectors instead of cutters, brushes or etching needles.
SQ1 – Dye sublimation print on aluminium at 80×80 cm
It should come as no surprise that I love bold colors in my prints. In these vibrant colors I almost feel photons hitting the lining of my retina. This is why I prefer fine art and dye sublimation prints. In traditional art I have a soft spot for dry pastels for that same reason.
SQ1
“SQ1” is the first print in a series of still life “Vibrations”. It’s an exploraion in color and composition, confined in an 80x80cm dye sublimation print. The image is created by writing code in an editor. If you are interested in how that works, check out this blog I wrote earlier about “Scalabe Vector Graphics“.
SQ1 on location (private collection)
The code I write generates a virtual canvas with shapes and color. Depending on the medium, the code creates images on an html pages for use on a website, but it can also be compliled into machine code that printers need to understand what they should be doing.
I love working in code, creating color by plotting in RGB values instead of using a visual colorpicker. It helps me step away from my preferences and biases. I can more easily explore alternative color spaces and bypass my preconceptions about color and composition. I am cheating though. I end up editing every piece by hand, down to the last detail.
On-site photograph of SQ1 (private collection)
You can find SQ1 in the portfolio here. It is also available for puchase in my Ko-Fi shop, here.
One of my favorite prints, “Fast Forward” is added to the portfolio and is available for purchase. It’s a large 150x80cm fine art print of 50 vibrant color blocks with old style fast forward buttons. Each of the 150 colors is unique and is full of life and energy. This piece is such a joy to look at. Every time I come across it, my brain does a little jump for joy. That is essentially every night, as we’ve given it a place on a wall next to our bed.
“Fast Forward” – Fine art print on watercolor paper 150×80 cm
A zest for life
The concept for “Fast Forward” emerged from a conversation with my wife during the beginning of the pandemic lockdown. There is one thing about her that I absolutely adore: her boundless resilience. She is my ultimate positron, a particle that refuses to go negative, which is a funny way of saying how much I love her. So “Fast Foward” to me is a celebration of a lust for life, and a testament to her vitality.
The digital version of “Fast Forward”
Love for color
The colors in the fine art print version of ‘Fast Forward’ turned out more vibrant and powerful than I had hoped for designing it. I hand-picked each of the 150 colors, looking for agitation. I love the energy of color, of it’s fotons, and how they resonate our retinas. When I look at the pigmented inks that saturated the woolly fibers of the watercolor paper, and how light reflects off both, well, that’s just magic to me.
Hi, just small but exciting update. I opened a Ko-Fi shop for my artprints. It just went live!
Studio view sept 2022
What is Ko-Fi?
Ko-fi is a platform that allows fans to make small (or large) donations to creatives around the world. The idea is very simple. Anyone can make one-off or recurring donations to artists they like and want to support. It’s basically a digital tip jar, with messages, a blog and a shop attached to it.
How do Ko-Fi donations work?
The support or tip function is incredibly simple. On some of my pages you will see a “Support me” button. You can use it to “buy me a coffee” or, if you feel generous, increase the amount of your donation to whatever you want. The cool thing about Ko-Fi is that it has a 0% fee policy on coffee tips. So 100% of your money goes directly to the artist you support.
The Ko-Fi shop
In addition to the support page, Ko-Fi offers a very simple to use shop for artists. Here, you can buy both digital as well as physical items directly from your favorite creator.
Examples of the Fine Art Prints available in the shop
I’ve opened a store offering Fine Art Prints. You will find links to product pages on the Ko-Fi shop throughout my website. You can also visit the shop here.
It’s been quite a busy week and I’m pleased to see that the website is making good progress. The main focus this week has been the portfolio.
Studio view 2021. On the wall MEME dye sublimation print on aluminium (private collection).
Prints
My main body of work are prints, so I have created a “Prints” section first. In it are fine art prints, dye sublimation prints and inkjet prints on acrylic and vinyl. Images that I hand coded, have a link to the code version of the piece for those interested.
Print queue
I’ve also set up the “Print Queue” to show you designs that are finished but not yet printed. This is mainly due to cost. Professional printing can be quite expensive, so I am thinking of ways to make these designs into prints through crowdfunding. I am doing some more research on that subject.
Code
I’m pleased with how the “Code” section turned out. I was expecting it to be a bit of a struggle, but the images I code by hand fit nicely into a WordPress site. These images are not pictures I uploaded to the server, but pieces of code embedded in the page. If there is a printed version available, a link which will take you to there. I’m still amazed when I see a few lines of code end up on an aluminium platen bursting with color.
Shop
I am working on a shop, or two. Though you will be pleased to hear that all prints are available for purchase. If you are interested, please contact me at ingmar[at]bzzrt.com.
Anyway, thanks for visiting. Your support means the world to me.
This is “IM – Denkmal für die inoffiziellen Mitarbeiter”. It is a scalable vector graphic printed on an 80×80 cm aluminium plate using dye sublimation printing. In this process, heat and pressure force dye into a gaseous state that chemically bonds with the coating applied to an aluminium plate. The result is a crisp and solid color image that is sealed by a high gloss coating. But it all starts with a bit of code.
IM in office hallway – Dye Sublimation print on aluminium 80 x 80 cmIM – Denkmal für die inoffiziellen Mitarbeiter
A bit of code
“IM” is a Scalable Vector Graphic or SVG. It is an image created in vector graphics format and stored in a text file using Extensible Markup Language (XML). Vector graphics use geometry in a coordinate system to describe shapes and colours.
What are vector graphics?
Vector graphics is a form of computer graphics in which geometric primitives such as points, lines, curves and polygons are drawn using points called vertices. In SVG, these vertices are coordinates (x,y) on a 2D plane. For example, a line can be defined by a start point and an end point. A computer can then interpolate between them to create a straight line. Using vectors we can draw a curved line between the two points.
I’ve included the code that makes up “IM”. Don’t be put off by how it looks, I just want to show you how little is needed to create the image.
That’s it! That is all it takes to describe this red, black and yellow artwork. The code defines an origin at coordinates (0,0) on a 2D plane of size 1920 by 1920, which acts as a canvas. It then describes some shapes and colours. In ‘IM’ there is a rectangle and three polygons.
What are polygons?
Polygons are geometric shapes such as squares and circles. A polygon is an irregular shape made up of several connected points or vertices. An ordered set of connected vertices is called a polyline. In “IM”, the red polygon has 13 vertices. The start and end points of the set of vertices overlap, closing this polyline into a shape. So all I have to do to create shapes like this is to create a list of coordinates and make sure the start and end point are in the same location.
These shapes are not limited to rectangles and straight lines. As I mentioned earlier, it is also possible to create curved shapes like this using vectors.
Portrait one – fine art print 30 x 30 cm
Scalability
One of the great things about vector graphics is its scalability. As you may have noticed in the code above, I use 1920 x 1920 to define the canvas, without using “mm” or “px” (pixel units). Interestingly, vector files only need values, not units. This means they can be scaled to any size without breaking. This allows me to use the designs equally well on different media.
Of course, there is a bit more to getting from this simple piece of code to a printed artwork using sophisticated machinery. I might talk about this in a future blog post.
