Deities is a new series of self-portraits from artist Eddie Lohmeyer that explore processes of spiritual transformation in the strangeness of late capitalism. Produced in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lohmeyer took photographs of himself surrounded by a vanitas style assemblage of objects—CRT TVs, paintings, videogame cartridges, VHS tapes, houseplants, guitars—that have nostalgic importance. He then green screened in backgrounds of bad stock footage and art historical images while donning several masks constructed out of foraged plants from both the swamps of Central Florida as well as the mountains of Western North Carolina. The portraits were run through a GAN style artificial intelligence algorithm to produce nebulous spiritual entities: angels, demons, spirits, sorcerers, shamans, and so on. These deities produced through a kind of computer vision of the artist in classical poses play with concepts of non-self in Eastern traditions. They consider the artist’s body as a continuously fractalizing bundle of experiences, thoughts, and feelings that is impermanent and in dynamic flux through the manifestation of different versions of Lohmeyer’s constructed sense of self.

Jpeg, 1200x1800, 300 ppi