Watch our reel from the event!

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Watch our reel from the event! 〰️

On September 15th, digital art lovers came together at New York City’s Bright Moments Gallery for a fun night to explore figurative art in the age of artificial intelligence. FigurAltion is curated by Grant Yun and features AI artwork by six talented digital artists.

Figurative art refers to the distorted or altered representation of the human figure in art — best known for works of Pablo Picasso, Lucian Freud, Alberto Giacometti, and Francis Bacon, this collection explores the abstraction of human body with works of digital artists who utilize artificial intelligence in their practice.

FigurAltion is a digital art exhibition curated by Grant Yun at Bright Moments Gallery, New York City. Photo credit: Pelle Waldron — *FigurAltion is a digital art exhibition curated by Grant Yun at Bright Moments Gallery, New York City. Photo credit:* *Pelle Waldron*

Throughout centuries, figuration in art has evolved from the intricate realism of the Renaissance to the abstract expressions of the 20th century, and today the exhibition celebrates a new era for figurative art by exploring how artificial intelligence is redefining this concept.

“Today, AI contributes to this evolution by pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, enabling artists and machines to collaborate in unprecedented ways. As the exhibition unfolds, viewers will witness a contemporary dialogue between human imagination and machine intelligence, illustrating how AI is transforming the very essence of figurative art in our modern era.”

— from the curatorial statement

Here’s more about the featured artists:

Claire Silver is a renowned digital artist who collaborates with AI to produce art that is transcendental. She hopes to evoke a wordless truth in the viewer through her art. Claire Silver believes in the power of AI when creating something bigger than both the human and the machine — something profound and more important than both the collaborators. To ensure that she lives in the same world as the AI, the artist paints a physical twin to select digital artwork she creates.

Claire Silver has recently had a solo show, Artifacts, at 0x.17 Gallery in collaboration with SuperRare.

Kevin Abosch is an Irish conceptual artist and pioneer in crypto art, known for his works in photography, blockchain, sculpture, installation, AI, and film. His work explores the nature of identity, value and human currency.

Emi Kusano is a Tokyo-based multidisciplinary artist who explores retro-futurism, technology, and nostalgia for Japanese youth culture and anime. Starting as a teenage street photographer in Harajuku, she is the lead singer and producer of "Satellite Young," which revitalizes 80s idol culture and explores modern technology.

Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst collaborate on interdisciplinary audiovisual projects that explore the creative potential and ethics of creating content using the AI technology. The duo is based in Berlin, and have been listed among Art Review's Power 100 in 2021 and 2022.

Bas Uterwijk, better known as Ganbrood, in the digital arts world, is a self-taught artist who creates computer-generated photographs using generative adversarial networks and AI. He is interested in visual storytelling that imitates and distorts reality, and since early 2021 he has been mostly creating abstract art and “pseudo-figurative” pieces that disrupts human visual recognition.

The exhibition is curated by Grant Yun, who is recognizable for his digital illustrations involving “a touch of minimalism and nostalgia.” Based in Milwaukee, the artist became one of the most sought-after creators in the NFT space since having his work featured at the Digital Art Fair in Hong Kong in October 2022, and his piece “Special Delivery” sold at Sotheby’s for 693,000 HKD.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Web3 art will become important in the overall culture of the internet, the 21st century, and contemporary art. For those who are here today, continue to stay, and put in 110% into committing yourselves into creating a legacy that will be rewarded immensely in the years to come.”

— Grant Yun

FigurAltion is at Bright Moments Gallery at the Seaport of New York City. The digital gallery started in Venice Beach, and is now in Los Angeles, Berlin, London, Mexico City, Tokyo, as well as New York City. They work with generative and AI artists to help them produce iconic real world experiences of their art, and establish crypto art communities around the world.

The gallery has a pixel art NFT collection called CryptoCitizens, created by the artist QianQian, which are minted IRL at in each city in batches of 1,000. These events are called “city activations,” and the art is created after a thoughtful anthropological study of the people and culture associated with each destination.

Bright Moments us known for their live IRL minting experiences — this is an event of revealing a generative art piece for the very first time, in-person, in a unique way, that is designed by the artist and created by the gallery.

Bright Moments is dedicated to creating unforgettable events, meetups, and experiences that are centered on the experience of minting generative and AI art. They organize independent in-person shows where artists release their new projects by minting them IRL in the event.

Also featured in Best Galleries to See Digital Art in NYC 2023