Using AI when you can already paint

Recently I trained an AI on my own paintings and then had it create a few more back for me in my own style. The results are both familiar and strange.

I’ve been painting my whole life, not as a way to pass the time, but as a central part of my career. Gallery shows, museum shows, films, ballets, books, apps, design, fashion — in all of it painting continues to play a role in my work and life. I’ve wrestled with the strange situation we are now in where amazing images happen by typing in a half-a-Tweet’s worth of instructions… and yet… how might a traditional artist use Generative AI?

Here’s what my traditional portfolio looks like. This is just a screenshot of my website. You see watercolors here, one oil painting, an installation shot, and a still from my time at DreamWorks.

And here are images I created using an AI trained on my own paintings, thanks to game-asset-generating app, Scenario.

Some of these feel very much of my own style and touch. Others, well, less so. And yet, what a strange and wonderful mirror to see myself presented back to me in the form of my own vocabulary. The familiar rendered strange. The self-same as other.