Digital art print before framing

This is a print of Macbot Singularity being prepared for acquisition in Los Angeles. At 40"x40", it’s twice the size of the special edition recently on exhibit in San Jose. (That’s a painter’s mask top right, for reference.)

The subject of this painting, Mac Tonnies, is someone I’ve never met face-to-face, so you’ll find it interesting that Mac was in Los Angeles for "four days of fun in the sun" as this print was being made.

Mac’s blog has a good explanation of what is meant by the Singularity

Lily’s hands

The hands are an important focal point of this work. Here, the heart-shaped outline of the flower is more apparent. A visual reference, along with the lily itself, to spiritual purity.

Lily face

Lily is an all digital creation. (You can see a concept sketch for this work below.)

20 minute pose

[eWarrior]: I’m interested in creating some “contemporary” nudes and struggling (I guess) with what “contemporary” means anyway. Genetic engineering and the intersection of humans and technology are themes which I think I can visually convey.

[Mac]: I think the trick is how to convey these very important themes subtly, as opposed to the “in-your-face” school of transhuman art (which has always bothered me because most of it seems excessively fetishistic.)

[eWarrior]: Exactly. Something like this: the loteks in Wm Gibson’s old stories did things to themselves in a fetishistic way, like getting real shark’s teeth. In-your-face. Time passes, people get used to it, pretty soon some super-model is sporting the "next big thing." And she looks cute. It’s what the super-model does that I’m after.

[Mac]: I’m facinated by the whole supermodel thing, a minor obsession that resulted in an unfinished (but interesting) short story about genetically engineered fashion models. I think models are the Delphic oracles of the cybernetic age.

[eWarrior]: Poised, self-confident, and in control. See the same model, later on, "behind the scenes," and she is a "mere mortal" after all. Something else was there.

[Mac]: Right!

Work in progress

If you look at Renior’s Bathers, from about 100 years ago, you can see how contemporary ideas of beauty are always changing. One thing I was quickly reminded of when I began sketching nude models was that few people fit into that perfect ideal presented by the mass-market beauty and fitness meme.