Artist Paul Kremer’s Latest Series of Floral Paintings Was Created With an Unlikely Collaborator: the A.I. Model ChatGPT
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The works are on view on the Library Street Collective through April 26.
Paul Kremer’s latest picture series, which is anchored, emerges from its title “Blooms”. his new exhibition at the Library Street Collective, seems perfectly organic in name, theme and essence. Featuring abstract variations of flowers, each biotic in shape and bold color, the canvases evoke Color Field’s trademarks as much as Henri Matisse’s croppings—and expand the Houston-based artist’s visual language.
But while these “flowers” were created with his standard tools – paints, brushes, canvas – Kremer also had a new collaborator in his corner: ChatGPT, the big AI language model.
“I wanted a quick way to manipulate shapes and color palettes,” he told Artnet News. “I realized that ChatGPT could help me brush up on my basic programming skills by allowing me to develop a range of online tools to import drawings and color palettes and generate new ideas.”
Installation view of Paul Kremer: Spring at the Library Street Collective. Photo: PD Rearick, courtesy of Library Street Collective.
ChatGPT was developed by OpenAI and made relatively accessible as an AI platform for conversations in its latest iteration, GPT-3. The model was trained on a vast corpus of textual data from around the web, meaning users can interact with it to find answers to burning questions or, more often than not, generate natural language material ranging from high school essays to rap lyrics
Kremer used the model’s generative abilities in the exploration phase of “Blooms” and made it produce changeable compositions based on inputs of different shapes and colors. To facilitate this process, he teamed up with artist and programmer Leander Herzog to create software that would allow him to easily feed, randomize, and manipulate the model’s results.
Paul Kremer, Blossom 09 (2023). Photo courtesy of the artist’s studio and the Library Street Collective
With the customized software, he said, “I can select and manipulate individual shapes from different sets of random shapes and adjust their position, size, and rotation. I can drag and drop colors onto these shapes and even randomize colors from my own color palettes.”
These experiments would then inspire new approaches for his latest series of paintings. “The results often surprise me and inspire new ideas,” he added. “I save and refine these files, then redraw them and paint them on canvas.”
Using digital tools as part of a creative process—and even creating those tools during the process, as in the case of Blooms—befits a self-taught person with a background in web design. But more than that, it builds on the conceptual framework that has shaped Kremer’s creative practice.
Installation view of Paul Kremer: Spring at the Library Street Collective. Photo: PD Rearick, courtesy of Library Street Collective.
Born in 1971, Kremer is known for his minimalist abstractions of everyday forms in paintings that maximize color to channel expressive and vibrant immediacy. His artistic work, which he began in the 2010s, could not do without digital interventions, whether through the use of Google image search or Photoshop manipulations. (For what it’s worth, Kremer is also behind the wildly viral Tumblr site, Great art in ugly rooms.)
“Making tools based on my paintings to create variations on those paintings has been a part of my past and will always be a part of what I do,” he said. “I don’t want my art to be stuck in the digital or physical world. I see the idea of both feeding off each other as my art.”
The fact that Kremer is now using AI makes sense given the explosive popularity of the technology and thus of generative art. Its use, he clarified, was solely that of an “art tool,” as opposed to an art-making machine.
He explained: “I’m not asking [the A.I.] to create images in my style; I challenge them to display my art in certain ways so I can manipulate it.”
Installation view of Paul Kremer: Spring at the Library Street Collective. Photo: PD Rearick, courtesy of Library Street Collective.
While voices against AI are growing, which Kremer characterizes as “a certain fear/rejection/snobbery” about the technology, he sees creative potential in “using new tools for otherwise old practices.”
He points to a round silicone coaster he owns that could be bent into various shapes to cast interesting shadows – certainly visual fodder for one of his canvases.
“I want to develop a digital tool that will help me visualize many variations of it instantly. I could paint these images or even turn these shapes into large scale silicone sculptures that people can manipulate themselves,” he said. “How do I do that? Why not start with AI?”
“Paul Kremer: Springis on view March 4 through April 26, 2023 at the Library Street Collective, 1274 Library Street, Detroit.
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