The British Art Fair runs from September 25 to 28 at the Saatchi Gallery in London, featuring the second edition of Digitalism, stretching two floors dedicated exclusively to digital art with works by over 60 digital artists. Among them is a rare lightbox collection created on the Paintbox, a groundbreaking digital graphics tool developed in 1981 by a small British company called Quantel. The show premieres works by Kim Mannes-Abbott, who created the MTV Europe’s iconic 1987 look, Emmy-winning artist Micha Riss, and Adrian Wilson, the first artist to specialize in digital paint photo manipulation. Wilson is also on a mission to share the forgotten story of the Paintbox, which quietly shaped the look of an entire visual era. 

In our interview, he recounts how the tool became a pioneering platform when artists like Keith Haring and David Hockney made their first forays into digital art.