Ater swapping from Information Design after 2 years to studying Fine Art at the university of
Pretoria, I majored in both painting and printmaking. I have always been attracted to the
possibilities of multiples, of making an art work available to own by more than one person.
Digital printmaking became a natural evolution in my process given the time I spent in the
graphic design industry learning the software and various output possibilities. I applied
these skills creating exclusively digital art works for a large part of my career, stealing from
Google and producing editioned digital prints.
I then started painting again and was lured back by the tactile nature of paint, by the
unpredictability of the outcome and by the physical engagement in the work. I began to
reverse the process, painting first, digitising the paintings and then adding the found
images. This was around the time that text prompted AI generated images became
interesting to me. I realised that I could use this tool to tailor make the images that I wanted
to use as additions to artworks or simply as references.
The art work Searching for satellites is an example of this. With the other two, Sugar Kisses
and Cosmic Connection I decided to take a step back to move forward, by painting onto the
prints, creating ‘one of’ works.
Paint captures and reflects light in a way that digital prints struggle to, it almost breathes in
the air and the releases a vibrancy through its colour and application, this is challenging to
achieve with pure synthetic inks printed by a machine.
Thematically my work often fixates on human connection and on shared experience, my
mediums have started to mirror these sentiments. Connecting and exchanging, painting,
generating printing and painting again; an infinite conversation. AI and technology driven
mediums are incredible tools, I do believe though, that they can be neither the sole
beginning or the end of an art work. Alexa will always need my help in the real world.
