2023; Algorithmically generated source image, oil paint on linen with marble dust
Project details
This work was inspired by a series of 15th-century paintings titled “The Ideal City,” which predominantly feature architecture. I was struck by the idea that the paintings seemed to suggest: that the ideal city is one with no people in it, as the paintings are virtually devoid of human figures. I used these three paintings and other Renaissance-era paintings that are visually similar to them, as the dataset for an image generation AI.
I selected some of the resulting algorithmically generated images at various checkpoints and arranged them into a cityscape composition. I then hand-painted the compositions using 15 and 16th-century painting techniques such as glazing and animal skin glue/marble dust canvas preparation.