Introduction to the art of Chris Peters.

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.

Chris Peters 0
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.

Chris Peters 1
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.

Chris Peters 5
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.

Chris Peters 3
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.

Chris Peters 4
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.

Links

Art Related Index

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.

An experiment of a bird in a vacuum jar.
Robert Williams
Todd Schorr
Mitch O'Connell
Greg (Craola) Simkins.
Mark Ryden
Alan MacDonald
Tokuhiro Kawai.
Jesus Helguera.
Michael Tole
Martin Wittfooth
Ania Tomicka
Bob Dob

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.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Introduction to the art of Alan MacDonald

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.

Alan MacDonald 1
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.

Alan MacDonald 2
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.

Alan MacDonald 3
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.

Alan MacDonald Z4
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
Alan MacDonald A1
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.

Alan MacDonald 4
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.
 Exhibiting in the United States and Holland,  Dundee-trained Alan Macdonald has clearly distilled his own unique  visual language in an impressive debut at Kilmorack. This is  sophisticated, visually literate work both in terms of technical  execution and multi-layered exploration of ideas, infused with humour  and defined with precision. 
       
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. 

 -Statements by Alan MacDonald © Georgina Coburn, 2011  
Alan MacDonald A6
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 Z3
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 beguiling Bullfighters Never know When To Quit  is an excellent example, a figurative group of seated male matador and  classical female nude with an attendant leopard at their feet, all  enigmatically focused on a scene beyond the frame. In the background  three blazing buildings infuse the contemplative stillness with  vitality, imminent danger and movement. This is contrasted with the  delicate play of light between three aspects of self, radiant and  luminous as a Titian Venus. The paint handling in this image is infused  with care and vulnerability, while the presence of a line of song lyric;  ”welcome back my friends to the show that never ends” provides an  ironic counterfoil to the conscious theatrical staging of the  composition. This humour is characteristic of the way in which Macdonald  visually stages his own subterfuge, an admirable quality in work with a  decidedly intellectual edge. 

 -Statements by Alan MacDonald © Georgina Coburn, 2011  
Alan MacDonald A5
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.  Macdonald’s skilful and intelligent manipulation of plastic and  ideological elements can be seen in the compositional strength of a  large scale work, Whims of Desire.
       
Here a young woman stands in the tiered  architecture of her black domed gown, tethered to something or someone  we cannot see, a number of openings in her skirt revealing a punch  spring, ball and chain, the unfurling script of a popular Joplin lyric;  “lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz”, a Magritte-like spoon and a  bouquet of white flowers suspended from her dress. At her feet a white  monkey eyes the open red “Kettle sweet chilli flavour” crisps packet in  her hand while she gazes past us impassively, a smile dawning in the  corner of her mouth. 

 -Statements by Alan MacDonald © Georgina Coburn, 2011  
Alan MacDonald Z2
These are works not just of a moment but of lifetimes, a real rarity in the world of contemporary art.
The elegance and restraint of her  clothing, symbolic presence of the monkey, together with the iconography  of burning buildings in the background convey psychological and sexual  tension. The composition itself is a powerful pyramid structure, aligned  with light, centring on her pale skin, white ribbon of script and rope  tether. Within this triangle are multiple triggers for the imagination.
       
In Venus On Wheels a codified  genre and its associative meanings are temporarily displaced by the  presence of a contemporary branded object. The Classical Goddess and  symbol of beauty of the title is being hauled on a cheap looking  trolley, the familiar striped design of a Tesco bag a Pop prop within an  image spanning multiple timeframes. The deep umber background of “dark  satanic mills” heightens the illumination of the consumer object and the  female nude. 

 -Statements by Alan MacDonald © Georgina Coburn, 2011  
Alan MacDonald A3
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.
Luna is an intriguing and  ambiguous image of femininity, beautifully rendered. The head and  shoulders portrait is suitably enigmatic, aligned with the symbolic  associations of the moon and her phases, linked with the element of  water and tides. The three-quarters profile – like the trajectory of all  of Macdonald‘s work – conceals and reveals. There is implied  confinement in the twisted twine and safety pins which secure and tether  her costume in silvery textured gossamer blue, a hue to match her eyes.  Attached to one line of twine the script “fly me to the moon”  introduces a Pop element /humorous Sinatra twist to what initially reads  like an encoded Renaissance society portrait.
       
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.
       
-Statements by Alan MacDonald © Georgina Coburn, 2011 
Alan MacDonald Z1
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”.

Alan MacDonald 5
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 A4
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
Alan MacDonald A7
“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
Alan MacDonald 7
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.

The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.
Jason and the Argonauts
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

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.

Link
R is for Rocket
Space Cadet (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein
Link
Link
Link
Correspondence Course
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
The Last Night
The Flying Machine
A story of escape.
All Summer in a day.
The Smile by Ray Bradbury
The menace from Earth
Delilah and the Space Rigger
Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby’s Is a Friend of Mine
Life-Line
The Tax-payer
The Pedestrian
Time for the stars.
Glory Road by Robert Heinlein
Starman Jones (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein.
The Lottery (Full Text) by Shirley Jackson
The Cold Equations (Full Text)
Farnham's Freehold (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein
Invisible Boy (Full Text) by Ray Bradbury
Job: A Comedy of Justice (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein
Spell my name with an "S" by Isaac Asimov
The Proud Robot (Full Text)
The Time Locker
Not the First (Full Text) by A.E. van Vogt
The Star Mouse (Full Text)
Space Jockey (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein
He who shrank (Full Text).
Blowups Happen by Robert Heinlein
Uncle Eniar by Ray Bradbury
The Cask of Amontillado

My Poetry

My Kitten Knows

Art that Moves Me

An experiment of a bird in a vacuum jar.
Robert Williams
Todd Schorr
Mitch O'Connell
Greg (Craola) Simkins.
Mark Ryden

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.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.