The Squeaky Pixel Gets the Paint
- turning digital art into something original
Paint, presence, and the quiet refusal to behave.
For years, Terry Hastings has been known for his digital precision—compositions that balance minimalist abstraction with emotional restraint, often staged with wit, ambiguity, and architectural clarity. But digital art, no matter how exacting, carries a burden: it’s infinitely reproducible. And in the eyes of some collectors, that reproducibility casts doubt. Is it real? Is it rare? Is it… art?
Terry’s answer is not a defense. It’s a pivot. And in many ways, it’s a return.
Long before the storefronts and gradients, Terry was painting—large abstract florals in the 1990s, bathed in color and drama, full of gesture and theatrical energy. The instinct for presence, for interruption, was always there. The Originals Series simply reactivates it.
This collection is a direct response to digital skepticism—a curated suite of one-of-a-kind works that begin digitally but are transformed through hand-applied acrylics. The paint brings life to the surface. It interrupts the grid. It stages presence. These are not prints. Not editions. They are interruptions—moments where the artist steps in and leaves a trace.
This series marks a shift—not just in medium, but in perception. Terry Hastings is no longer just a digital artist. He’s a painter of precision, a choreographer of restraint, and a provocateur of presence.
The Process
Each piece in the Originals Series begins digitally—composed with minimalist gradients, ambiguous landscapes, and architectural restraint. Terry uses digital tools not for shortcuts, but for structure. The compositions are precise, deliberate, and emotionally cool.
Then the interruption begins.
Once printed on archival canvas, each piece is hand-finished with acrylics. Terry returns to his painting roots—channeling the gestural energy of his 1990s florals, where color and movement ruled. But here, the gestures are restrained. The paint doesn’t decorate; it disrupts. It introduces texture, tension, and presence.
No two canvases are alike. The brushwork is spontaneous but strategic—activating the surface, breaking the grid, and staging a moment that cannot be replicated.
This is not a hybrid. It’s a choreography. Digital sets the stage. Paint delivers the performance.
Terry has chosen his favorites from across a variety of categories—Postcards, Midwest Memories, even The Secret Life of Plants gets the Originals treatment. These aren’t just popular pieces. They’re the ones that hold tension, evoke atmosphere, and refuse to behave.
Each selected work has been elevated—transformed from digital composition into a singular, hand-finished canvas. The result is a curated suite of Originals that span Terry’s evolving archive, now staged with texture, presence, and painterly interruption.
The result? Eight singular canvases. No editions. No replicas. Just Terry, returning to his painting roots and refusing to behave​
As the Crows Fly captures a wide, open plain—quiet, expansive, and subtly broken by shifts in the wheat field. A distant horizon anchors the composition, while a small flock of crows cuts diagonally across the sky, painted by hand with deliberate motion.
Terry returned to the surface with acrylics, painting in the birds, the horizon, and the wind itself. The brushwork introduces texture and tension, staging the rustle of wheat and the quiet disruption of flight. It’s a piece that evokes space and movement without spectacle—just presence, gesture, and the refusal to stay still.
Seaside Sunrise opens with a layered horizon—cool tones rising into warmth as morning light stretches across the sea. The composition is structured yet atmospheric, with horizontal bands suggesting sky, surf, and shoreline.
Terry returned to the surface with acrylics, painting in the breaks in the morning sky, the crest of a wave, and the distant sea wall. The brushwork introduces subtle motion and texture, staging the quiet drama of a coastal morning. It’s a piece that balances stillness with gesture, precision with presence.
Basin pulls back from the coastline, offering a wide, layered view where the ocean appears only in the distance—just beyond the mountains, just past the edge of memory. It’s a composition of restraint and suggestion, where geography becomes choreography.
Terry returned to the surface with acrylics, painting in the seashore, the point where the Valley meets the Hollywood Hills, and—if you stare long enough—white seagulls in the mist. The brushwork is subtle but deliberate, staging presence without spectacle. It’s a piece that rewards attention, curating atmosphere through interruption and trace.
Signs of Spring and Tulip Fields Forever offer two distinct vantage points on the Dutch tulip fields in bloom. Spring presents a more traditional landscape—horizontal bands of color, a windmill in the distance, and a sky that stretches with quiet optimism. Forever, by contrast, is composed from a drone’s eye view—bold, geometric, and rhythmically fragmented.
Terry returned to both surfaces with acrylics, hand-painting rows of tulips blowing in the wind. The brushwork introduces motion and texture, activating the fields with presence and gesture. One piece evokes atmosphere; the other, architecture. Together, they stage spring as both memory and map.
Crisp is Terry’s recollection of a stunning fall day in Minnesota—out on the lake, surrounded by stillness and color. The composition is cool and expansive, with soft clouds drifting overhead and their reflections mirrored in the water below.
Terry returned to the surface with acrylics, painting in the clouds, their mirrored doubles, and the distant lakeshore. The brushwork is subtle, atmospheric, and precise—staging a moment of quiet waiting. You’re out on the water, fishing pole in hand, but who really cares if the fish bite? With all this beauty around you, the catch is beside the point.
Satisfied is a portrait of solitude—a single cactus standing in the desert, content in its isolation. The composition is spare but evocative, with soft gradients suggesting sand, sky, and the quiet geometry of the landscape.
Terry returned to the surface with acrylics, highlighting the drifting sand, the blowing wind, and the point where mountain and desert floor meet. The brushwork is subtle, almost meditative—staging stillness without stagnation. It’s a piece that honors quiet resilience, where presence is enough and nothing needs to happen.
Morning Reflection is a study in indecision—or maybe indulgence. The sky doesn’t settle on a palette; it performs one. Hues drift, collide, and echo across the pool below, staging a quiet riot of color and calm.
Terry steps in with acrylics, not to clarify, but to amplify. He highlights the tones that linger, the ones that refuse to fade. The pool doesn’t mirror the sky—it answers it. And somewhere in that exchange, morning arrives.
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These eight works mark a turning point—not just in Terry Hastings’ practice, but in how we think about digital art, gesture, and originality. Each canvas is a refusal: to be replicated, to be quiet, to be easily resolved. The Originals Series invites collectors to engage with texture, tension, and the choreography of disruption. It’s not a return to painting. It’s a return to motion.
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And if your favorite piece isn’t listed? Don’t worry—the squeaky pixel gets the paint. Just Ask!
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All of this work can be purchased on the Originals page