Right-Triangular Dither 1, 39.6% Green

Basic Information

Artist(s):
Daniel Temkin
Title:
Right-Triangular Dither 1, 39.6% Green
Medium:
Image Size:
96 x 144 in.
Date Created:
2025
Inventory #:
Temkin-2025-01

Description

signed, titled, and dated verso of each panel in Sharpie

96 x 48″ each
96 x 144″ overall

statement provided by the artist:
The Dither Studies are created by giving the computer an impossible task: to approximate a solid color using a palette of two complementary colors that will never visually recombine. They are then hand-rendered by the artist, painstakingly recreating the computer’s output. Dithering is a process invented in the early days of digital graphics to make images look smoother when display systems were limited to smaller color palettes. Dithering works by strategically placing the pixels that make up a digital image into patterns that give the illusion of more shades or tones. Instead of using it to improve the appearance of a photograph or drawing, Temkin applies dithering to a single, flat color. Without an image, dithering itself becomes the visual focus.

Temkin designs custom kernels for unusual pixel shapes, like triangles and hexagons instead of the usual square. To create them, Temkin uses what’s called a “genetic algorithm,” a type of machine learning that works like natural selection. The computer generates many possible patterns pseudorandomly, measures how well they work, and then combines and modifies the best ones over many “generations” until strong solutions emerge. This image uses Right-Triangular Dither Algorithm 1, the first kernel created by the artist for right triangles.

 

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Dither Studies began with an accident in Photoshop: applying a small color palette to what should have been an empty field of color created instead a complex, seemingly irrational pattern. This was an error diffusion dither: perhaps the fundamental algorithm of digital photography. Applied to a lack of content: a solid color or gradient, and […]