Paintings

Mijn oma zei voor we sliepen: "wie het eerst slaapt steekt zijn hand omhoog".
Ik bleef maar kijken tot die arm zou stijgen. En vroeg me af of we allemaal met onze arm omhoog sliepen.

A glimpse of the process of a series: “Reimagine”

The “Reimagine” series explore the delicate balance between rationality and interpretations. The figures depicted in the painting are not real people, but rather, they were created by an AI. Despite their artificial origin, the figures possess an uncanny realism that blurs the boundaries of existence. The paintings are symphonies of contradictions - figures have been depicted with anomalies like extra limbs or disproportionate body parts, they reveal their artificial genesis. Yet, there is a haunting beauty in their imperfection, a silent testament to the power of (AI’s) interpretation of human form and soul. Even birds seem to be interacting with humanoid figures.

Rationality is not the only or the dominant way that we see the world and ourselves. We also use interpretations: meanings and stories we construct and communicate to make sense of our experiences and identities. They often transcend rationality, by offering alternatives, challenges and transformations.
AI-generated images are not just representations, but interpretations. They challenge our rationality, by making us question the validity and the reliability of our perception and cognition.

In the series, one image is reimagined or invented each time. It shows how differently we interpret and give meaning to what we see. It can reveal multiple perspectives.

1. 41 cm
2. 14,5 cm
3. 15x21 cm

My work often balances on the boundaries between the artificial and the natural. Through simulations and transformations, reality interweaves with projections of an alternative world, as if you’re wandering around in the mind of a stranger. As an artist I look at portraits and imagine a story, however, this story might not be consistent with the reality of that person.
For a long time I’ve been searching for neutral portraits to be free from these realities. By finding the website thispersondoesnotexist.com, I had discovered my kind of Tinder! I am fascinated by the artificially created portraits on thispersondoesnotexist.com: an endless stream of fake portraits. Every time you refresh the site, the network generates a whole new facial image. The algorithm behind it is trained on a huge data set of real images and uses some kind of neural network to come up with new examples. I must confess that I am addicted to it, as soon as I’ve reloaded the page, I’m instantly curious to imagine the next story.