Julián Sileiko, known as Sulkian, is an Argentine artist and graphic designer based in Rosario whose work stages collisions between natural and urban landscapes, popular culture, religious symbols and raw nature.He builds 3D-modeled, AI-assisted digital landscapes he calls “Psychedelic Polluted Nature”, using pixel art and retro-computing aesthetics to comment on technology's effect on the natural world.
He originally studied architecture before moving through design and art courses that shifted his practice from painting into digital animation and digital painting. He works with 3D modeling, virtual reality, programming and artificial intelligence, describing his process as entering a virtual world where he becomes an avatar sculpting in three dimensions with his own virtual hands.
In 2017 he took part in the Plein Air Art Residency in Csongrad, Hungary, and in 2021 he joined the Taller Compartido contemporary art workshop at the Crudo gallery in Rosario, which culminated in a group exhibition there. In 2022 his NFT-era work was shown at Teia After Party in New York, Ethereum Latam in Buenos Aires, and Vibrant NFT at Rosario's Castagnino museum. In 2023 he presented a virtual reality installation at the Digital Camp event in Rosario, an interactive world built from a generative landscape project sculpted within virtual reality.
He has led Mixing Era, a generative AI workshop focused on local and open-source models for the Newtro Inspirational Series in Argentina, whose output became the collective drop Fricciones Latentes, exploring the tension between automation and intimacy and between artistic intention and algorithmic logic.He also created Sulkicks, a generative profile-picture collection of 3,000 pieces that trains a custom AI model on hand-drawn sketches translated into 3D sculptures to generate its variations.
