“Artifact”
2023 // Watercolor with Acryla Gouache // 12” x 16”
I’m so pleased to share my latest artwork with you. It’s titled “Artifact” and was painted for the Sci-Fi pop up show with Gallery 1988, curated by artist Scott Listfield. For the exhibition, artists were tasked to envision what the future might look like.
I love Scott’s work and its prescient themes, and I was delighted to be invited to be a part of the show! I knew that my piece would be about generative AI before I even finished reading the email and spent the next few months thinking about my contribution.
Before concepting the painting, I knew I wanted to this painting to do a few things: I wanted to reference some of the artwork that was scraped, I would work with older reference photography I took (also used in my scraped artwork), and that I’d allow the generative AI “style” influence my own in this piece.
My sketches and notes worked simultaneously to develop my idea for the painting. Eventually I settled on two figures, one representing the human element of creation and the other representing the cannibalistic, hydra-like monster that is generative AI.
The human figure is vulnerable, bare-chested, literally tearing from her own flesh in order to create. The artist is compelled, and they’re surrounded by growth, vibrant color, and blooms. She’s an entire ecosystem that is self-sustaining.
The GAI figure is monstrous, deformed with extra fingers and limbs. It forms from the mutated spine of the human figure, multiplying into three forms. They’re seductive but blank and devoid of intention. In referencing both my older work and the digital nature of GAI, parts of the painting are pixelated, a style that appeared in my own art between 2009-2012 or so. The blooms and leaves are artificial, and the hair and roots often blend into non-sensical tangles. These bits of evidence of generative AI are called artifacts.
I struggled for awhile with the color palette, tried a few different ideas and asked for feedback. I even did a watercolor study of the face of the human figure with a different palette than I ultimately chose. (The study is available on Every Day Original).
Once I was able to begin work on the final piece, the winter break meant I had a few weeks of uninterrupted time to put my entire self into the painting. I painted day and night with the occasional social outing to keep my brain balanced! It was lovely.
After about three weeks, the piece was done! Toward the end, delirium set in while trying to meet the shipping deadline (narrator: I didn’t, and had to overnight ship it). That lent itself really well to the GAI side of the painting, haha. I clocked 20 hours alone on the drawing, and between 60-70 hours on the watercolor portion of the painting. Another 4-5 hours was spent with acryla gouache, primarily used to touch up and highlight throughout the piece.
I finished “Artifact” just two days before the opening (definitely not ideal!) but it made it in time for the show. Meanwhile, I was really pleased to read this from Scott in a preview article from Gizmodo:
“Kelly is one of the first artists I thought of when I began thinking about this show. I’ve been a fan of her work for a long time and I really admire how public and open she has been about how various AI companies have been stealing and referencing her work without her permission or approval. If there is anybody I wanted to capture this exact moment in time, it is Kelly, and she created a stunning piece of work for this show. It’s a gorgeous and moving depiction of how her own art has been taken and mutated into something else. The horror of seeing your own creative vision taken away from you, fed to machines, and recycled back to you endlessly. It’s a personal story but also an allegory for our time and it contains everything that AI art cannot—genuine humanity.” - Listfield
This sent my little sleep deprived heart soaring to read! It means a lot to hear this from Scott. Often the only people that fully understand the work I create are also artists, and this is certainly a painting made for them and meant to reflect not only this moment in time, but serve as a warning of a future that does not protect artists like me from being exploited by generative AI:
I’m terribly pleased to share that the original has sold and that prints are now available! There’s two sizes and two editions - 12” x 16” and 16” x 20” - available as open edition and an embellished limited edition of 25 and 10, respectively.
Finally, I want to mention that “Artifact” is both protected with Glaze and poisoned by Nightshade. To read more about this exciting technology from Ben Zhao and the University of Chicago, head here.
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