After our first work together, Ronan and I continued to collaborate. These are some of the more recent pieces we have done together, usually with a focus on landscapes.
Most of this work involves creating landscapes "around" the physical skull paintings, using plexiglass printing (since the printed image then retains some qualities of an image on a screen) sized the same as his physical skulls.
From l'Avant Galerie's site page about this show :
"A painter hesitates, gives up, searches and sometimes bugs, gets stuck or unblocks. Can artificial intelligence be a tool in this painting process?
In 2019, Robbie BARRAT, digital artist, and Ronan BARROT, painter, dialogued in a first INFINITE SKULLS exhibition. Robbie learned about painting and Ronan met the 'machine'.
Five years have passed, Robbie BARRAT and Ronan BARROT have aged, the questions are the same. Now, Robbie uses A.I. as a creative tool rather than a research tool, and Ronan continues to paint.
But what to make of these painting images generated by artificial intelligence programs? Do they still need to be corrected by the painter? Are they a possible source of inspiration?
For this second encounter, POST ESQUISSES focuses particularly on questions of painting.
Ronan's individual skull paintings are sized at approximately 10.6 × 8.7 inches.
All images can be clicked to enlarge.
"One of the works in the exhibition features a landscape created by Robbie from an altarpiece of 48 Ronan skulls. Ronan, the painter, is dissatisfied and intervenes. The post esquisse can then become a painting." (credit for this text, l'Avant Galerie Vossen)
There are 6 skulls inside of the landscape. In the image immediately under (the exposition view), the altarpiece that was used as a reference when I was making the landscape is visible, with the skulls included in the "Possible Landscape" removed. I made the landscape from the arrangement of skulls in the altarpiece, so essentially any skull could be removed/replaced, and fit into the landscape as long as it occupies the original position it did in the altarpiece (e.g. if a skull from row 3 and colum 4 from the altarpiece is placed at row 3 and column 4 of the landscape, color-wise, it will fit in and blend in with the landscape).
