Will Penny
Looking at the work of Savannah-based artist and educator Will Penny, it's difficult to identify a consistent medium. Sculpture? Video? Painting? Some defaulted-to "multimedia" descriptor? As we had our conversation, I came to remember that such classifications aren't all that important.
"I'm not a web designer, but now, I'm working with web design," he tells me.
Having received both a bachelors and masters in painting, it's somewhat surprising to see Penny's work effortlessly alternate between mediums, often utilizing combinations. He currently finds himself teaching software at SCAD – not stuff that he necessarily "went to school for," but technology that he uses on a daily basis.
"What I try to teach people is an attitude, or an approach about using these technologies. [In my undergrad] it felt like there was this idea of 'talent' versus not. But the more that you get to understand a process, the more you understand that it's predominantly something mechanical. And thus, it's an issue dealing more with attitude."
With optimism that feels as logos as it does pathos, Penny asserts that an adequate amount of patience is the only true prerequisite to learning a new artistic medium. I bring up the often daunting task that we face as artists in the digital-internet era; how we reckon with the web as "the final frontier." As it turns out, this is a consideration that Penny usually keeps in mind with his practice, but with covid-19 being a real thing, the concern is almost omnipresent.
"[The virtual] was originally a secondary concern," Penny tells me. "A lot of what I've been trying to develop has been process-driven [...] with the end goal to have it in a public space, somewhere physical." He is among the legion of artists that have had upcoming shows moved to a virtual capacity, and while making work that deals with the electronic, he admits that looking for a silver lining within the digital realm du jour has been "difficult."
However, Penny doesn't subscribe to what he calls a "technophobic Black Mirror perspective" (while also providing disclaimer that he does in fact enjoy the show). He goes on to elaborate that he's, in fact, perhaps leaning more towards notions of techno-romanticism and utopias.
Will Penny
PLEIN AIR VIII - SAVANNAH
2018
EFI VUTEk GSR 3m inket on canvas, 60 x 60 in
"I'm thinking more now about how we can look at [new technology] somewhere in-between optimism and fear, and look more objectively at what's practical. What can we use it for? How can it help?"
Will Penny
WHERE TO BEGIN
(promotional image for upcoming exhibition)
2020
Touchdesigner Kinect Sensor, FBX Avatar Control
With that said, it seems that Penny is both active and content in his continual self-evaluation of what being an artist means for him in the internet era. At one point, I thought that I'd detected the slightest hint of some wistful nostalgia within his voice when he began to talk about his formal education as a painter, before platforms like Facebook had explosively taken off. "Back then, my real experiences would inform me the most – nothing that I didn't encounter in person [...] I think a lot about a time where we could remember not having the internet."
However, he isn't the type to excessively dwell upon the past, and hearing him talk about both his educational and artistic practices, it feels as if Penny still has his eyes set on the future: finding methods of bridging the gap between the real and the digital.
"Now I'm thinking, like, how can I build some sort of connection with the net – a connection that can jump over the divide? Which is, to me, still a really utopian / romantic idea that I have. I'm wrestling with that right now: what's my expectation and where do I get that, and what's my audiences' expectation and how do I navigate that?"
for more of Penny's work, visit his website