Happy Halloween! This year’s Halloween artwork combines painting and programming.
This week, I have a video that has excerpts from the artwork I programmed. The program picks four of my paintings at a time and forms a Vanitas-type arrangement with a skull, fallen crown, extinguished candles, and withering flowers – symbols of our transience. The program has 50 paintings from 2021-2024 to choose from. The music for the video is composed by me, representing a conversation about the temporary nature of life.
You can watch the video bigger by pressing the last icon on the menubar.
If you are interested in seeing more of this artwork, here’s a longer video that explains the Vanitas concept and shows more samples.
I designed the 3-dimensional shapes and then blended the paintings on them by programming.
Painting by Programming
One of my oil paintings is also Vanitas, so the theme is very familiar to me. The transience of life has both horror and beauty, maybe emptiness too that goes well with the machines. The way the computer paints with me produces fascinating details.
We can continue the tradition of Vanitas paintings and use any technique to make our own versions.
What kind of version would you create?
P.S. This month there was a digital art exhibition “Deform and re-form” on the screens of the Helsinki Central Library Oodi. The exhibition called “Deform and Re-Form” was organized by the Finnish National Gallery’s digital team. Oodi is a very popular big library building, with lots of visitors every day. It felt great to see my artwork “Queen of the Night” there.
Even if a part of this year’s art is digital and painted by programming, I still keep creating traditional art as well.