I come from a family in which all women can draw and paint incredibly well. In fact, my mother is an accomplished illustrator and author of children’s books. Naturally, I was given crayons and colored pencils before solid food, and I dare say that painting was my favorite hobby during childhood. I drew animals, cities, planes, epic battles, intricate machines, and the like. Allegedly, I painted a violinist at four years old that was used on the cover of some music magazine. Some years later, I definitely won a bicycle for a picture I made with watercolors, even though I used the technique all wrong. In school, I got mad whenever I did not receive an A grade in fine arts class. In other words, I did my fair share of manual artwork.
All of that changed after I got my first computer and discovered other formats of art, such as music or writing. For some time, I tried a bit of calligraphy, and to this day, my peers comment on how tidy my handwriting looks (supposedly). I only picked up the pen when I had to, occasionally making sketches for my other work or short comics when I was bored in class. After I was done studying, even that was over. In a panic, I bought an Apple Pen with my name engraved on it: used it twice. Got charcoal and nice paper for Christmas years ago: still have not touched them. I am afraid of the blank page and that the first stroke might ruin it because there is no undo button.
Simultaneously, I am awestruck by what other people post on social media. Thus, I excluded drawing and painting from my hobbies altogether. What remains is my ability to express difficult subjects with a few quick strokes, making me the ideal sparring partner in “Pictionary.”
Luckily, manual artwork is not all there is to visual art. As I grew more skilled at programming, it opened new possibilities, which I felt much more comfortable with because every faulty step could be traced back and undone. Sometimes, my art happened by accident when I was actually plotting numerical data and forgot a minus or something (enough to bring down entire moon rockets). Additionally, I took photos and chopped them up in Photoshop, mostly for album covers.
Some of my problems were solved with the rise of AI-generated images. Yes, dear artists, I am one of the bad guys stealing your style. But rest assured, much of it is only used as input data for my own algorithms, which I am a lot more passionate about. Because honestly, who still looks at AI-generated things and says, “Wow, that’s cool!”
My favorite artists include (but are not limited to): Chiara Bautista, Zdzisław Beksiński, Hieronymus Bosch, Salvador Dalí, Zac Deloupy, M. C. Escher, Tyler Hobbs, Andrea Hoyer, Djamila Knopf, Sascha Wiederhold.
Below, you can take an in-depth look at my artwork.