Is this all your own work?
September - December 2025
Painter & digital artist Peter Macdonald presents a series of new paintings alongside interactive artwork
Artificial Intelligence is on everyone’s mind. What does it mean for us, our communities and our society? What does AI mean for creativity, ethics and the arts?
ArtSpace5-7 presents a radical new show by British painter and digital artist Peter Macdonald. Is this all your own work? raises timely questions about agency, authorship, power and control.
In his evocative gestural paintings, Macdonald re-visits the classical tradition of landscape painting from a new perspective, incorporating AI as collaborator, model, method and tool.
Trained as a painter, Macdonald references the expressive and gestural qualities of great European painters such as expressionist painter Chaïm Soutine and avant-guarde artist Jean-Édouard Vuillard, as well as some of the great abstract artists, Robert Ryman and Sol LeWitt, pioneers in minimalism and conceptual art.
Macdonald explains how he subverts AI by trying to emulate it: “seeing how it feels and looks to act like a machine,” integrating technology via "a distinct practice of utilising 3-D modelling software in the preparation of drawings and code-based rendering in the development of the video artwork.” In an analogue of the prompt and image creation pipeline of an artificial intelligence image service, the "artist’s hand" remains visible through the handmade qualities of his paintings, and deliberate choices of their author. AI is a collaborator.
Curator Dr. Anna M. Dempster explains, “as an accomplished artist, Peter has been thinking about the relationship between art and AI for a long time and is a seminal contributor in the field. It is very exciting to be able to present work which challenges pre-conceptions that art and technology are in conflict and show how they might work together and inform each other. This work is rooted both in the classical traditions and techniques of landscapes painting and also makes innovative use of new technologies.”
“In a departure from standard exhibitions, we want to encourage active participation and interaction from visitors. This opens up opportunities for viewers by allowing them to directly engage with the creative process and active co-creation. It makes art both more relevant, more accessible and more fun. It becomes relevant for broader generations and the wider public, which is one of our core aims at ArtSpace5-7.”
Alongside a new series of paintings, Macdonald presents interactive artwork that encourages an engagement between visitors, the paintings and AI ‘minds’ with which we are all becoming familiar.
As well as being an accomplished painter and skilled draftsman, Peter Macdonald has been fascinated with the interface between human creativity and machine capability for several decades. At the forefront of exploring the philosophical and practical questions that are posed by AI for the artist, he has developed unique systems and processes which integrate AI software, harnessing its generative capabilities and the power of uncertainty. AI is hard at work and the artist is present. A new exhibition for new times.
The exhibition opens to the public on Sunday 21st September and runs through to mid-December.
You can try out Peter Macdonald's AI-powered co-creation app at the link below. Just pick a painting from the exhibition; pick a voice for the AI response; and create your own - or should that be 'own'? - unique artwork!
