Michael Kutsche 

"Goodbye Horses" is a meditation on the challenges that AI art potentially imposes on the role of the artist in society. If machines do a better job at painting than a human artist, does it make the act of painting obsolete? I perceive creating art (and painting in particular) to be more than a mere profession; it’s a form of deeply human expression that taps into the spiritual part of our very being and I would argue there will always be a place and need for it. 

In the 1988 song “Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazzarus, we hear what appears to be a vague account of an argument with a disillusioned man who seems to think of life as being meaningless and futile ("All things pass into the night"). The song concludes with a reply from the narrator: "Goodbye horses, I'm flying over you." The horses are a nod to Hindu philosophy and represent the five senses with which we experience the materialistic qualities of the world, and flying over them is akin to aspiring to a more spiritual state of mind that goes beyond a purely rationalistic and finite world view. 

In a similar way it could be argued that the act of creating art is an aspiration towards something that is of more than just practical and monetary value and the "sum of its parts", but that it taps into the spiritual part of the human experience. In the various depictions of the late medieval allegorical "Danse Macabre" theme, various personifications of death are depicted in attire representative of their status and profession, a nod to the universality of death. 

In similar fashion, the jumping skeleton in "Goodbye Horses," which is carrying various artistic tools, is a representative of all artists. And, despite the gloomy outlook of his future, with his profession heavily challenged by rapid advancements of AI image creation, he doesn’t succumb to a purely rationalistic world view, where painting in light of AI advancements seems increasingly futile. Instead, he is facing the situation with optimism, by "flying over the horses."

Goodbye Horses

Yazid

Upon encountering Matisse's "Blue Nudes" series, I found myself intrigued by the photograph of a room adorned with these simple yet evocative depictions of the human form. At first glance the figures appeared as harmonious abstractions, each embodying a shared pose while subtly diverging in unique ways upon closer inspection. This experience ignited my fascination with the artistic endeavor to recreate the same essence through multiple iterations, prompting a contemplation on the role of variations in a generative art series in an era often fixated on extravagant algorithmic diversity.

Here we aim to celebrate subtlety. This project employs not only the randomness inherent to algorithms but also the serendipity of human intervention. Anchored in my own hand-drawn inputs, the process intertwines organic paths with algorithmic automation, generating polygons that exude the beauty of nuanced distinctions.

Beyond technique, this endeavor mirrors an autobiographical passage — a celebration of my evolution from functional coder to constructor of pure form. Matisse's iconic method of composing with cut paper — initially a preparatory ritual — mirrors my own journey. What once served utilitarian software now finds purpose in artistry, code morphing into my chosen medium of artistic expression. This metamorphosis, a kinship to Matisse's transformation, is my homage to the creative odyssey that beckons when code transcends its pragmatic origins.


Drawing with Code

Operator

Photograph of Ania Catherine taken by Dejha Ti in Calistoga, California in 2017. During that year, Catherine and Ti had just started working on their ongoing feature film A page intentionally left blank, a nonlinear narrative inspired by the hidden lives of surrealist muses. 

On a walk, the two spotted a field of grass which had human-like curves and appeared to have been frozen mid-motion. Unamused was created spontaneously as research and experimentation around recontextualizing the female nude figure for the purposes of the film–which include seeing the female nude through the eyes of a woman, through the subject’s own eyes, and in situations in which the full spectrum of the “muse” as a human–and oftentimes artist–is recognized. 

The title hints at how muses might feel about always being known for inspiring others instead of for their own artistic talents: unamused.

Unamused

Jack Butcher

"Epiphany"

Ben Kovach

Doomscrolling is a five second, 60fps looping animation modeled after the physical feeling of scrolling through a social media feed on a cell phone. 

A digital version of the animation was created using Ben’s unique generative art framework written in Haskell. Each of the 300 resulting frames were meticulously copied in charcoal to paper, then photographed and sequenced to create a seamless looping, hand-drawn animation.


Doomscrolling

Hans Dehlinger

"LIGHT" by Hans Dehlinger, with its fine lines and structure, has an elegant, "light" appearance. There is an impression of light radiating from its center.

"I created this piece to be uplifting yet non-intrusive. The work doesn't actively pull the viewer in. Only once you consciously direct your attention to it do you see and feel its calmness, light, and strength." – Hans Dehlinger

LIGHT

Casey Reas

ATOM is a way of thinking about digital images. The pixel is the atomic unit of every digital image — each pixel is three numbers that define the intensity of red, green, and blue light sources. Every digital image has two representations, a linear sequence of numbers and those numbers converted into a grid of lights that form an image. ATOM is the collision of the objective and subjective, it’s a space to explore.

An early version of ATOM, called ORA, was written in C++ in 2003. It was the first time I thought precisely about images as data and data as images. At that time, I was loading photographs into the system to “see” them in different ways, to look at their data through other representations. ATOM, created from scratch in 2023, is completely generative and synthesized. The static gooey color patterns are the core of ATOM. They are generated with code that combines sine waves. These patterns are the data sources that drive three other diagrammatic representations of each pattern image: color blocks, RGB signals, extruded terrain.

ATOM is my Rosetta Stone. It’s the foundation for "An Empty Room," my work exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in Spring 2023, and also "923 Empty Rooms," a long-form generative art release with Bright Moments and Art Blocks in August 2023. This work all builds on my "Still Life" series, first exhibited at the bitforms gallery in New York in 2016 and concluding there with the final "Still Life" exhibition in November 2023. 

Press “spacebar” to keep exploring the “space” of possibilities within the features of each mint. The ‘B’ key changes the background value.

ATOMS

Inna Modja

This portrait is a celebration of individuality, capturing the quiet strength and radiance of an extraordinary woman in the first light of an African sunrise.

The balance between anonymity and what we choose to share with the world. Individuality, identity & anonymity all at once. 

How even behind a curtain, a veil, a mask – essence can still shine through. 

Ethereal Dawn

Craig Mullins 

I tend to work very intuitively. If I like it, it stays, if I don't, I try again. This is one of the greatest things about painting digitally. Versions and branching allow for a very new workflow. So the following interpretation never occurred to me while I was making the image. I want to make something like rich soil, that just about anything could grow in. 

A quick take —

In plain view a cross is clear, with the center figure collapsing internally from spiritual malaise, as seen by the inward gestures of the whole body and shoulders and hands.  This would be us, having lost a key idea or vitality, some version of a Grail. The base of the cross would be the Knight who found the Grail at great time and expense. All pretense of wealth or station is gone, perhaps this humility has allowed him to find the Grail at all. But certainly he is in contrast with the other Knights.

The screen left figure is the Pious. The other Knight is skeptical. The Pious has bowed deeply and submits to the truth of the Grail. The Skeptic is standing, at the ready, and is armed. He's not too sure about any of this.

Another very clear device is the theatricality. The lens is VERY long. The shapes stack up very similar to a stage scene. I find this creates a formality that I might have done with symmetry a while ago. But now I really like the artificiality of the composition contrasted with naturalistic painting.


The Grail

Dangiuz 

My cat is the only living being that understands me.

A Perfect Friday Night

Hideki Tsukamoto 

Gone are their worlds. Actions taken that silenced these places for a thousand years. The echo of distant cannons forgotten, the souls of their victims evaporated, claimed by the void. A new epoch now, a different era. 

Long after the cold and the dark came to claim everything, smoldering under the ashes of memory, we find the veins and arteries of their civilization. Clusters of roots, cavernous extensions of what they lost, that drive themselves deep into the earth. Potent icons of existential dread, of what is gone. Their meaning is unknown, but not unknowable. 

These RELICS will bring to light what we have forgotten, ancient memories of their catastrophe, so we can learn how not to replicate it.

RELICS

Diewiththemostlikes

Here sits an unusually round cul-de-sac. It exists in no city or country in particular, sometimes occupying several places at once. It inherits an excruciating omnipresence, feeding from those who choose to submit to its unblemished façade. Some say it is the most circular object to ever exist, others argue that one cannot determine the exact roundness of any given cul-de-sac. Some residents have just arrived, maintaining their beautiful warts and scars; others have lived here for thousands of years. In the end, they will all be as smooth and lifeless as the asphalt that carries the burden of mid-size sedans and other senseless consumer goods.

The longtime residents of the characterless houses surrounding the freshly paved half-moon celebrate the absence of edges or other peculiarities. They have already been ground to gray matter and reshaped into something vaguely human. Their peaks and valleys melted into oblivion, an indeterminable beige paste used to build more luxury houses. Several windows open, giving a glimpse into the most unbearable mundanity imaginable and the brutal carving of skin that would eventually smooth every crevice remaining.

Around Again

Shavonne Wong 

Echoes of Identity is a digital art project exploring duality, self-discovery, and perception. The journey begins with an unrevealed placeholder; an enigmatic close-up of a woman's face. 

The narrative unfolds into three unique variations, each expressing different aspects of identity. The first variation explores self-duality through a twin presence, the second uncovers hidden selves within a split face, and the final one mirrors our ever-changing perceptions. This project challenges collectors to engage with the artwork on an intimate level, unraveling the complexities of human identity, and fostering a deeper understanding of ourselves.

Echoes of Identity

Roope Rainisto 

Studies on multiple moments in time at once: people that are physically present but mentally absent, and vice versa. Collection of 10 works.

Time-Lapse

Kim Asendorf

Open Console

Per Kristian Stoveland

"Blaatimen" is a Norwegian expression referencing the last hour of the day, when the sun is about to descend below the horizon. On clear days the sky becomes a warm, majestic gradient, playing a symphony with the endless mirror of the sea.

This artwork was created by Per Kristian Stoveland and is part of Grails IV.

Blaatimen

Goldcat

Madonna

Ayla El-Moussa 

A solitary female stands in a vibrant lush landscape, her expectant gaze fixed on the horizon, symbolizing our collective anticipation of the future. The world she surveys is an intriguing mix of clarity and obscurity, with a sky seamlessly merging the ocean's depth and the cloud's drift; is she waking from a dream?

The pervasive mist serves as a metaphor for an enigmatic yet undeniable future and the only way is forward.

A Woman in the Mist

BASIIC

A collection of 25 AI generated quadrilateral artworks, each backed by two staked Ethereum locked in a smart contract. Given the accruing yield, the NFT's foundational value is in a state of perpetual growth. 

The owner has the option to burn the NFT at any moment, reclaiming the attached staked Ethereum.

Lines of Division (/25)

Other World 

The advancement of my art involved sequential, gradual, and consistent experimentation. It was never a binary of a certain style “working” and another “failing.” The changes over time flowed, one after another, and came to me naturally. I went where the art took me. It required hundreds of artworks before my art arrived to where it is today, where it is still evolving, and will evolve perpetually. 

The exhibited piece, “Paying Debts” is from a time where the strictly-collage style was expanding with a layer of illustrations. The main classical art piece that “Paying Debts” is based on is “The Last Statement” by Arthur Kampf. 

During this time, my art was much simpler in its detail. I do not remember exactly, but this piece probably took me a few hours over the course of a few days to create. It shows the combination of collage with immature illustration on top. The faces on the characters foreshadow the creation of my colorful, hooded characters called “fiends.” The clouds in the background were illustrated by me, but are far less detailed than the clouds I draw today. 

This piece is important to me because it shows how far my art has come. My work gained traction in 2021, but not many people have looked back at my older work and how it has consistently evolved into where it is today. It’s important to look back into any artist’s career to see first-hand that it is almost never an overnight “success.”

Paying Debts

Welcome to the latest season of PROOF’s marquee art collector experience: Grails IV. We’re bringing 20 artists with limited edition, series and generative artworks. As always, artist identities are kept secret until the post-mint live reveal event.

Type	Edition
Mint date	Aug 7, 2023
Max supply	50

Details