My Computer Taught Me to Paint Abstracts

My computer taught me to paint abstracts.

So, If you’ve been reading the ol’ blog, I’m sure you know that I’ve been playing around with genart: the use of a computer to introduce randomness and chance into visual work. Some of the results are really cool, I think. Unlike most things I’ve seen anyway. How’s that for an artsy-fartsy analysis?

I got to thinking, what if I used some these results as reference images for traditional paint on canvas works? Not one-to-one recreations, but reference images? 

One of the issues I’ve had with my genart is accurate color reproduction on the prints. My printouts don’t have the same pizzazz as the colors of an actual painting. Pizzazz, yet another technical artsy-fartsy term. I’m full of them ( or something else entirely), today.

Another issue is the transitory nature of genart. The original output is unique to each run of the program. It exists in ones and zeros on my hard drive, but can be duplicated infinitely if one cares to. How can something be unique, and not unique at the same time? 

I will post some of my efforts on my Instagram feed.