GAN-scapes

Drawing inspiration from an AI image generator I had trained, I created these three paintings.



Closed Eyes

Closed Eyes is a book documenting an experiment to accurately record my mental visualizations, written with the guidance of Ph.d Neuropharmacologist Panos Zanos. These paintings were created as the experiments to record my visualizations. There are no artistic or creative interpretations in these paintings. What is depicted is the best of my ability to record my observations of those brief mental images that come and go throughout the day. The impetus for this project was that if I could discover patterns within my mental visualizations, maybe I could create a closed-eye realism shared commonly among people. I think it may be akin to cloud formations. Most people do not pay attention to the shape of clouds because they are nebulous and constantly changing. But upon closer inspection, one can discover patterns and a logic behind their formations. My hope is that it is the same for visualizations.

Observation 5

I am sitting on the zafuton blindfolded. I will now imagine a face. I see Maqui, my girlfriend, from above. Her face is not posed like a photograph, but just a still from a moment of observing her. Her face is not moving but steady like a photo. Her face is bouncing around the visual field and flickering in opacity. The Eigengrau and phosphenes are bubbling through her. I have memorized the pose well. How could I possibly paint this from memory? I think what I will do is have her pose and take a photo in that exact pose. I will do the drawing from the photo so I won’t have to be concerned with proportion. The rest I will paint from memory.

Hollow Myth

This body of work called Hollow Myth consists of still life oil paintings on canvas and wood panels painted in the style of classical western realism. The still lives depict plaster sculptures and projected AI generated imagery. The sculpture and imagery draw from the classical style, yet are inspired by the contemporary world.  As viewers explore the works, they will discover the multiple layers of meaning, symbolism, and allegory that Hollow Myth seeks to convey. The narrative exploring the fragile and ever-changing relationship between the real and the myth is at the heart of this work.

The Theater of Perception

I had never seen the actual “Dream of Constantine” by Piero della Francesca, but the printed image was strong enough to hold my attention for many years. Something about the way the tent opened has a deep significance that I cannot put into words. I hoped to discover what that significance was inside me that I was projecting onto the image. I began by building the motif. I dipped a cotton cloth into wet plaster and draped it over a stick. I ran wire from underneath to give structure to the rising folds and cut a slit up the center. Once it dried, I hung it on my still life stage and projected the image of the fresco onto it. This is what I had been doing in my head, projecting inner significance onto something real, and now I had brought that internal process into the physical world so that I could observe it externally. Through painting, I layered reality, projection, and translation onto the canvas in exactly the same way I am doing all day in between my green eyes. 

A Fool On Stage

The word persona in Latin means mask, or a character played on stage. It is the root of the word person, and personality. Here I have built a persona suspended over a fabric draped stage which became a bed to dream a life on. Beneath her I placed the world, a radically simplified world of cut up cardboard slapdashed together and glowing a synthetic green. The role this persona plays is the fool, a person who suffers from their ignorance. A quixotic fool who lives in a great fantasy of their own, and to be awakened from this fantasy is to lose all meaning in life.

Projection: GAN-scape

The group of paintings I call “Projections” were made by projecting artificially generated imagery (GAN) onto a still life stage and sculptures. What I love about AI images is their emptiness. Technically, there is no authorship behind them. The lack of its understanding of what a mountain is, what a cloud is, etc. is shocking to see in an image. But now, I use this imagery in place of my own creativity. In essence I have outsourced the most sacred part of my art practice to a machine. What does it mean? Is it significant? I’m not sure, but I find it interesting. The AI generators are an externalization of my own stream of thought. I then project this stream of thought onto real objects, and together they are dissonant. The skewed projected landscapes are an analogy for my warped lens of subjectivity.

Construction: Triumph

The collection of paintings called, “Constructions” appear as if I slung a bucket of hydrochloric acid onto western painting and melted out all the substance. This glistening Dairy Queen slurpy art is uncomfortably empty. I have hollowed out the genre and have left only the illusion. These paintings just are as life for an atheist just is. They exist because of chance decisions made intuitively in my open-ended artistic process, rather than strict adherence to depicting a concept. 

Academic Art

This photo gallery showcases a selection of paintings of my work while studying at the Florence Academy of Art. These pieces demonstrate my development while mastering the techniques of the Old Masters. Through this collection, I share my appreciation for the great works of the Italian Renaissance and the centuries of tradition that inform the craft of painting.