IKON/01
Over the years, I came to realize that human beings are full of love. But that it can only be expressed through the other. We need the otherness for the light and love within ourselves to be able to shine. The other acts like a mirror. You feel what the other makes you feel. And the other feels what you make them feel. Wether it’s conscious or not. So my question was : How, as an artist, can I create the conditions for someone to break their heart open, and shine ? This IKON is one result of that research. This is a attempt to create a modern and secular icon. A mirror of the love within you. The traditon of painting Icons is not about flatly representing a sacred character but is about painting the sacredness within ourselves, through some holy figures. An image acting as an active mirror. Hence the gold, the naive traits, the apparent simplicity of the forms and the use of colors as symbols. The generation of the character is AI-assisted so it has this collective memory within. Because AI generation is based on computation, interpretation and compilation of existing images. It is then edited by hand in a digital painting software and animated. I composed the original soundscape accompanying the image specifically for the piece.