š½šš šš
Whatās your background and how did you get into AI art?
I come from many years of traditional painting, working mostly with oil and on the subjects and style of the Renaissance masters. My passion was transmitted to me by my family. My grandfather was a surreal painter, he created views of Venice with no water. Red earth and stone-like humans. My father and my aunt helped him with the backgrounds and more tedious tasks, and later became painters themselves. So I can say it runs in the family!
I got into AI art almost as a call for help, a last tentative to save my passion for art and painting. I wasnāt able to sustain myself with painting sales and my day job didnāt allow me to experiment outside of boring commissions. AI gave me the nimbleness and burst of creativity to start anew, and Iām very grateful for this.

āTo Dustā - AI reinterpretation of one of my grandfatherās paintings
Do you have a specific project youāre currently working on? What is it?
I have two big projects ongoing but sadly I canāt talk about them at this time! What I can tell you is that Iām now entering my second year in NFTs and my focus will be much higher on creating art with an impact that will last for decades. Iām closing myself down on refining my message, my delivery and my own unique aesthetic. The best is yet to come!

āSomething youāre not supposed to seeā by RenAI
You talk about refining your personal aesthetics, do you have any tips for other artist on how to achieve this?
Iām currently working very hard on this. I think the best option I found was to ditch the search for cool visuals and instead focus on the message first. I you have a strong narrative you want to follow, youāll also naturally associate an aesthetic to it. And since you are invested in that narrative, youāll be less likely to get sidetracked by other cool stuff!
What drives you to create?
Iām creating as a way to let out from my system my thoughts, sentiments and ideas that I normally wouldnāt consider discussing with anyone but myself. Itās a bit like going to therapy but the canvas (or in this case the AI) is the active listener. I donāt consider AI a mere tool for creating, but rather a multiplier of artistic and conceptual skills, and Iām here for it.

āFlamelessā - My tentative to cope with fear of burnout, uncountable creative options, passion waiting to explode
What does your workflow look like?
Iām a very creative person. I always look at things as they happen and create my own version of the story. A little trick of mine is stopping a movie mid action, look at a frame and come up with my personal twist based on the thing Iām fixated with at the moment.

A scene from the movie White Noise
When some topic or narrative twist picks my interest, I start researching compositions with hand sketches. Composition was so hard for me at the start of working with AI, and itās so important to convey a story. Fortunately these days with ControlNET and img2img this is much easier. I use prevalently Stable Diffusion (I like having fine tune control on a plethora of little caveats) but Iām finding myself drawn more and more to MidJourney. Their latest model is so much more coherent in creating the scene and so now the challenge is to bend them to look like a Ren artwork!

Final result from the above āWhite Noiseā image. A couple communicating without talking, in silence. The safe in the background symbolizes the closed circuit in which we are not invited to partake.
What is your favourite prompt when creating art?
My favorite prompt is the one that I mistype or when I have fun matching strange subjects! I always try so hard to coerce the AI into giving me the result Iām painting in my head that sometimes I forget to discuss with it, let it steer my vision and contaminate my delivery. And with AI I mean the thousands of images created by other artists. In a way Iām discussing with them. After all, art as an ever evolving human communication channel, is a collective effort!

Daguerreotype art of a konbini at the end of the universe::2, drip technique::3, exploded schematic
How do you imagine AI (art) will be impacting society in the near future?
I love to separate language models from art models, but Iām not sure this is just a way for me to live with the choice I made to take advantage of this incredible technology. Reality is, Iām very positive that AI will dramatically change the very foundation of our society. Things like repetitive tech human labor will disappear. Professions will be conducted in very different ways and overall growth will exponentially accelerate. BUT humanity being humanity, I fear the day someone will use ChatGPT8 (or whatever it will be called) with malicious intent. We need to take a serious look at what weāre creating and what the implications will be. I donāt think we will though. My stance is to make the most out of it and help educate others as much as I can on the moral implications on its impact.
Who is your favourite artist?
I have huge respect for so many players in our web3 artistic space, but I owe my mindset and education to the old masters. I love Thomas Coleās sense of wonder, I love Gustave Courbetās intense depictions of human sentiments, I love Tiziano Vecellio technical skills in depicting the themes of his time through clever allegories⦠the list goes on and on!

āStorm Coveā - AI exploration of the Romanticism aesthetics
Anything else you would like to share?
I came into the crypto art space to find a new outlet to show my artwork and I found many new friends, a new paradigm for art and the vibes of a new Renaissance coming from the underdogs and the unchained. I hope that many trad artists can find the courage to take the leap and try for themselves. I have no doubt the future of art will stem from here.