We are just a group of retired spooks that discuss things that you’ll not find anywhere else. It makes us unique. Take a look around. Learn a thing or two.
To understand Chris Peters. We need to understand his dream.
TensorDream began as a deep learning neural network whose code was modified by artist Chris Peters to assimilate the vast complexity of landscape imagery. Over a three day period, the neural network studied the composition and palette of thousands of landscape paintings before finally achieving an understanding of their gestalt. Now, in seconds, the A.I. can synthesize and propose new compositions.
These landscapes have an odd, alien quality but are still remarkable given that the software began tabula rasa,
an algorithm filled with nothing but the ability to self-learn. The
entirety of its knowledge came from the set of digital images presented
to it – a collection of paintings curated by Peters, emphasizing the
masters of American Tonalism and their dreamy images of primal ground
and sky.
These landscapes have an odd, alien quality but are still remarkable given that the software began tabula rasa, an algorithm filled with nothing but the ability to self-learn.
The A.I. Muse produces digital images, but a digital image is not a painting and a computer printout of the same image is still not a painting, no matter how faithfully rendered. The artist is needed to translate the idea into a language that human beings recognize as theirs. It seems essential that what began as a painting must end as a painting.
When an artist stands in front of a
canvas, brush in hand, they are trying to understand the world by making
an image of it. A photograph can record that work, which can inspire
another painting. A photograph of a painting can even inspire a
computer, as it has in the TensorDream project, but only a new physical
painting can complete the cycle. From reality, through a series of
simulacra and back to reality. And so the exchange between Artist and
(AI) Muse continues.
The A.I. Muse produces digital images, but a digital image is not a painting and a computer printout of the same image is still not a painting, no matter how faithfully rendered. The artist is needed to translate the idea into a language that human beings recognize as theirs.
The final task for the artist was to paint, but it was no easy task. Even for an artist with Peters’ rigorous training, fleshing out the machine’s idea was fraught with difficulty. Where to start? How to establish a point of view? How to render an alien world filled with familiar features? Eventually, Peters began to understand some of the neural network’s logic, and still later to accept and embrace it. Only at this point could Peters bring to the A.I. what it was missing – the knowledge of the real world, the world of sky and trees and water.
In a wholly innovative collaboration
between man and machine, new paintings have been manifested that promise
us a glimpse into a world at once familiar and fantastic – our world,
in fact, as seen by a new intelligence of our own design. By painting
this alien view, Chris Peters is beginning to understand the mind of the
AI Muse. By looking at these works, we can too.
The final task for the artist was to paint, but it was no easy task. Even for an artist with Peters’ rigorous training, fleshing out the machine’s idea was fraught with difficulty. Where to start? How to establish a point of view? How to render an alien world filled with familiar features?
Chris Peters’ formal education began in Seattle where he
received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of
Washington. Later he trained for three years at the Gage Academy of Art,
learning the drawing and painting methods of the 19th-century academic
tradition.
Eventually, Peters began to understand some of the neural network’s logic, and still later to accept and embrace it. Only at this point could Peters bring to the A.I. what it was missing – the knowledge of the real world, the world of sky and trees and water.
His work has been exhibited at the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art as part of the private collection of
Academy Award winning director Guillermo del Toro and he recently
completed a solo show at Sullivan Goss Gallery. He’s had eight previous
solo shows at galleries in Santa Monica, Santa Fe, and New York City.
His collectors include many members of the music and film industries.
His work has been exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as part of the private collection of Academy Award winning director Guillermo del Toro and he recently completed a solo show at Sullivan Goss Gallery.
This is an index of art that I have found profound, interesting,
beautiful or enlightening. In any event, I find that art soothes my
soul. I enjoy painting figurative and portraits in oils using the more
traditional Flemish technique, but it never really brought me the kind
of money I need to live off of. Such is the life of a painter today.
Please enjoy.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
There is a cool, quiet elegance to Alan
Macdonald’s paintings, which belies the disequilibrium at their heart.
His figures, grey eyed and dreaming, might be time travellers, drawing
distant cousinship from the portraits of Rembrandt or Frans Hals. His
bucolic northern landscapes lay claim to an equally venerable artistic
heritage. But if an accretion of the art historical past informs his
imagery, it is transposed into a world where confidence has been lost,
where the spiritual beliefs and myths which once bound man to nature,
and through nature, to the divine, fail to connect.
Frequently, single letters or words, even meticulously copied dictionary definitions, are added to the sections of a painting, as if language might hold a key.
Frequently, single letters or words, even meticulously copied dictionary definitions, are added to the sections of a painting, as if language might hold a key.
We follow through the a,b,c, trying to piece together the jigsaw, but language proves as fallible as any system by which we structure our existence, and we are left with a series of miswired lexical circuits. Is a landscape “an area of land regarded as being visually distinct,” or is it “a painting, drawing, photograph etc. depicting natural scenery?”
Macdonald lets both definitions stand. Though he would not call himself a surrealist, like Magritte, he points up the ambiguities surrounding real objects and their images in art, encouraging us to consider his work as more than a simple pictorial narrative.
Though he would not call himself a surrealist, like Magritte, he points up the ambiguities surrounding real objects and their images in art, encouraging us to consider his work as more than a simple pictorial narrative.
The otherworldly characters in his
series of portrait heads have the look of forgotten pilgrims, bonneted
and constrained by cords like the followers of some perverse form of
Puritanism. Each is neatly titled according to a state of mind:
hedonist, altruist, sadist. We read the titles and search their waxen
features, hoping to discover their soul in the curl of a lip, or the
tilt of a chin. Despite this attempt at self assertion the figures
remain isolated, pinned down by their cords, as if by the codes and
strictures of society.
These are beautiful paintings, all the
more potent for their distilled sense of calm. Macdonald gives us no
answers, but the questions he raises about the search for faith and
identity in a difficult modern world touch a nerve, and in the faces of
his pilgrims, we recognise ourselves.
The otherworldly characters in his series of portrait heads have the look of forgotten pilgrims, bonneted and constrained by cords like the followers of some perverse form of Puritanism. Each is neatly titled according to a state of mind: hedonist, altruist, sadist.
It seems fitting that artist Alan Macdonald, born and brought up in Malawi, one of the least populated areas in South East Africa, now lives and works in a small town not too far from medieval Edinburgh, Scotland. His meticulously crafted images are emblematic of Scottish characteristics – love of nature, history, humour, beauty and surreal scenery – linked together in compelling enigmatic and sometimes foreign imagery.
His meticulously crafted images are emblematic of Scottish characteristics – love of nature, history, humour, beauty and surreal scenery – linked together in compelling enigmatic and sometimes foreign imagery.
" “It took me years to realize that it is the darkness in things that I respond to, whether it is a painting by Francisco Goya, a song by Leonard Cohen, a play by William Shakespeare or a film by Pedro Almodovar.
When I was a child living in Africa, I was outside on a night lit by the moon and, feeling a little scared, I stepped from the light into a dark shadow,” the artist told Tatha Gallery.
“The darkness wrapped itself around me and fear was replaced by an understanding that I was being protected. Later, when I was twelve, a boy walked into my classroom with drawings he had done in pencil. They were representations of figures, that went from the white of the paper to the blackest black that the graphite could muster, and from that moment the artistic light for me was ignited.”
-Alan MacDonald
At the base of MacDonald’s work seems to be a need for adventure, exploring inspiration and varying perspectives in each work.
There is seemingly no element too exotic to inhabit an oil painting by Alan MacDonald, whose works traverse cultures and histories to present something always elegant in execution. At the base of MacDonald’s work seems to be a need for adventure, exploring inspiration and varying perspectives in each work.
There is seemingly no element too exotic to inhabit an oil painting by Alan MacDonald, whose works traverse cultures and histories to present something always elegant in execution.
Often incorporating hyper-realistic contemporary popular culture objects and well-known phrases, Macdonald’s Renaissance style paintings are at once familiar yet strange, inviting close inspection as if asking us to solve an amusing, highly original puzzle.
Often incorporating hyper-realistic contemporary popular culture objects and well-known phrases, Macdonald’s Renaissance style paintings are at once familiar yet strange, inviting close inspection as if asking us to solve an amusing, highly original puzzle. Alan Macdonald acknowledges that, indeed, the solution can sometimes elude him; his skill is to give us hauntingly beautiful pictorial clues which tug on our psyche while making us smile, even laugh out loud while encouraging us to search for our own answers.
Alan Macdonald acknowledges that, indeed, the solution can sometimes elude him; his skill is to give us hauntingly beautiful pictorial clues which tug on our psyche while making us smile, even laugh out loud while encouraging us to search for our own answers.
The work is archetypally Northern in its interior quality, the dark grounds and focussed illumination reminiscent of Flemish masters, the looser paint handling, particularly in the landscape backgrounds, akin to Dutch landscape and maritime painting of the 18th century. The unforgiving choice of oil on board makes the sublime delicacy of the painted surface all the more impressive.
The tension in these works is compelling, and their real beauty lies in the fluid nature of association which imaginatively expands the mind of the viewer along multiple pathways of interpretation. These are works not just of a moment but of lifetimes, a real rarity in the world of contemporary art.
This is a fascinating show of contrasting styles, raising expectation about potential developments in Kilmorack’s regularly exhibiting artists and introducing an exciting and dynamic new artist to the gallery’s audience. It is an absolute pleasure to become lost in the multi-layered nature of Alan Macdonald’s work, encouraging repeat viewings of this extraordinary show.
Alan Macdonald considers his work a visual journey with a subtext of a sense of adventure and excitement but destination unknown. As he tells us… “There is the belief in every painting that one day, as you set sail, you will find a faraway beach on which to land, avoiding the ragged rocks and inky depths of doubt. On one of the luckier voyages you arrive somewhere that is strangely familiar but which you have never seen before. It is a distant coast of you”.
While there are many art historical influences to be seen in this work, Macdonald remains his own man, in full knowledge of the canon, playfully seducing the viewer with familiarity of style then subverting expectation of traditional narrative. Displacement of elements; the surreal juxtaposition of classical and industrial architecture, the adornment and status of costume with utilitarian functionality and the presence of consumer branding/ Pop elements in the same frame as traditions of historical painting and portraiture thankfully never allow the audience to get too comfortable.
It took me years to realise that it is the darkness in things that I respond to, whether it is a painting by Francisco Goya, a song by Leonard Cohen, a play by William Shakespeare or a film by Pedro Almodovar. When I was a child living in Africa, I was outside on a night lit by the moon and, feeling a little scared, I stepped from the light into a dark shadow. The darkness wrapped itself around me and fear was replaced by an understanding that I was being protected. Later, when I was twelve, a boy walked into my classroom with drawings he had done in pencil. They were representations of figures, that went from the white of the paper to the blackest black that the graphite could muster, and from that moment the artistic light for me was ignited.
A wise old German painter friend once said to me, after seeing me floundering around trying to explain away one of my paintings, “Remember, Alan, your paintings are like a bubble, and a bubble with a hole in it is no longer a bubble.” So with that in mind, I will tread carefully.
-ALAN MACDONALD
Alan Macdonald considers his work a visual journey with a subtext of a sense of adventure and excitement but destination unknown. As he tells us… “There is the belief in every painting that one day, as you set sail, you will find a faraway beach on which to land, avoiding the ragged rocks and inky depths of doubt.
Nothing pleases me more than when someone laughs out loud whilst looking at one of my paintings. As comedians are aware, humour is a subversive thing, breaking down barriers and making others more receptive to your message or point of view. Years ago, a particularly tired, world-weary man came into my exhibition, with an, 'impress me if you can' expression on his face. He trudged from painting to painting, unimpressed… that is, until he came to a painting of a man covered in tattoos with a row of pins in his forehead, called 'Masochist'. It caused him to burst out laughing! He then went back and looked again at all the paintings he had just trudged past, now taking his time and responding to them all. It confirmed for me the importance of humour in art.
All the shapes and forms my work takes, have evolved over years. Painting clothes that resemble period clothing, for example, happened naturally. At first because it just seemed right, but I now realise that it brings to the work a sense of someone lost and out of time, desperately trying to work out the universal question, “What the hell am I doing here?” Especially when modern items like a can of coke or a scooter are included. Max Ernst once wrote that an artist should have one foot in the subconscious and one in the conscious. This, I think, is what I am trying to do.
-ALAN MACDONALD
“When I begin a painting, I feel like I am embarking on a journey, one in which I have no idea of the ultimate destination. As a result there is a real sense of adventure and excitement as you set sail into the unknown, armed only with a belief that, one day, you will find a faraway beach on which to land. “
When I begin a painting, I feel like I am embarking on a journey, one in which I have no idea of the ultimate destination. As a result there is a real sense of adventure and excitement as you set sail into the unknown, armed only with a belief that, one day, you will find a faraway beach on which to land. Unfortunately, too often, the ship founders on the jagged rocks of doubt, leaving your heart to sink into the inky depths, from where you have to resurrect it. On the luckier voyages, though, you arrive somewhere that is strangely familiar, but which you have never seen before. It’s a distant coast of you.
-ALAN MACDONALD
All the shapes and forms my work takes, have evolved over years. Painting clothes that resemble period clothing, for example, happened naturally. At first because it just seemed right, but I now realize that it brings to the work a sense of someone lost and out of time, desperately trying to work out the universal question, “What the hell am I doing here?”
Alan MacDonald is a brilliant artist, and I would be proud to hang his art within my home.
Movies that Inspired Me
Here are some movies that I consider noteworthy and worth a view. Enjoy.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are
reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly
impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal
library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come
and enjoy a read or two as well.
My Poetry
Art that Moves Me
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
