Thomas Ruff - jpeg compression/pixelation


Not quite pixel art but moving in that direction. These monumental images by Thomas Ruff are made from digital images. Thomas Ruff is a German photographer who is most known for his large detailed passport style portraits. In more recent works he explores different subjects with jpegs found on the internet blown up to large sizes. The jpeg compresses large areas of similar color by coordinates instead of all individual pixels.The larger the compression (and the smaller the file size) the larger the block of colors. In Ruff's work you can see the image broken down into squares of varying degrees of compression. These images are quite striking already when you see them small but monumental when you look at them large.