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Winner of the 2024 Brisbane Portrait Prize Digital Prize
This self portrait/series of portraits questions our understanding of self-portraiture and how we create a sense of identity. It also references the role of artificial intelligence in the creative process, by using both AI and a manual photographic process called carbon transfer printing.
About the artist
Brisbane artist Dennis McCart works across a range of mediums including painting, drawing, animation and machine learning, drawing inspiration from the tension between humans’ instinctive connection to nature and ever-increasing signs of detachment. He has studied fine art, drama, digital new media, and most recently, a Master of Visual Arts at QCA, Griffith University. Repetition, remembrance, and recreation are all key components in his work. McCart has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions, and been shortlisted as a finalist in notable art prizes within Australia.
Judge's Notes
This artwork operates on a number of levels. It’s a beautiful object, and it engages in a critical manner with portraiture and art making.
It does this by using both historical practices like carbon transfer and new tools like generative artificial intelligence. The work is self-reflective both conceptually and materially, using both AI and old photographic techniques to critique facial recognition technology, and celebrate human creativity.
Exhibition 2023
(machine learning and the human hand)
Catalogue
Drawings that provide moments of misrecognition and yet unnerving beauty. Dennis McCart’s art practice reflects the ambiguity between our inherent connection to the natural world and the continual distancing from it.
Thursday, 6 July 202312:00 pm
Sunday, 9 July 20232:00 pm
Vacant Assembly
266 Montague RoadWest End, Qld 4101 Australia map
The Uncertainty Principal 2021
At the start of 2019, I began to experiment with generative adversarial networks (GANS) within my practice. GANS have allowed me to create new visual works that combine elements of digital industrial sites, fringe landscapes around Brisbane River and urban-rural borders while also incorporating my own paintings and photographs. Part of the delight of this process is creating works that are brimming with unexpected beauty and intricate detail rarely encountered in traditional fine art practices. I'm excited to see where this journey takes me in terms of developing new aesthetics and art forms the technology brings forth.
Land Street Gallery + Studio 6 Land Street, Toowong, QLD, 4066, Australia.
