The Rebirth of Venus, 2024
Inspired by Sandro Botticelli's ‘The Birth Of Venus’ this was an exploration of techniques utilising MidJourney AI image generation alongside Apple Pencil digital drawing in ProCreate.
When I started thinking about the depiction of women with implanted and external defibrillators the idea of utilising AI generated art appealed as a compliment to the bionic women depicted.
One of the fascinating aspects of using AI was the inherent data bias in the image set. It made generation of classical nudes impossible and massively restricted the range of women that could be generated using the term ‘woman’ to a westernised ideal of beauty.
Pulling the images into ProCreate allowed me to digitally paint the skin, remove clothing and insert the defibrillation devices. It felt like as many of us are dependent on technology to stay alive, but have to be our own strongest advocates alongside this, in the same vein the technology for art generation is merely the support structure for the artist to paint on.