This piece is part of a series exploring the relationship between destruction and creation, and what it means to be human in an increasingly post-human world. The subject is generated by AI. I painted a portrait of it, allowing myself to connect emotionally with this ghost from the machine. I then overlaid an absent-minded geometric doodle over the portrait, erasing parts of the underpainting in the process. By letting my mind wander as I do the overpainting, I aim to bring the unique humanity of the subconscious to the work while rejecting the false humanity of the subject and revealing what it truly is — a meaningless abstraction of geometry and color.

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Email: tristan@tristanwillis.com, Instagram: @tristanwillisart