Post-Human Hallucination / fusing artificial intelligence and oil painting in a repetitive and circular process to explore a new expanded ecology of visions
This series of works was created using Artificial Intelligence (AI). Images are printed on cotton canvas and oil painted. As with the rest of the practice, it is based on a tension between personal intuition and the involvement of technology as an external extension of a collective mind. The process is cyclical, with machine learning being performed repeatedly. For each image generation, the AI is fed photos of my completed works, which have been previously generated by the machine and painted. This process allows the AI to study my own works and reformulate them based on its experience. By increasing the textual input and shortening the time given for data processing, I address the AI in a way that challenges its generative logic, aiming to bring out its synthetic unconscious. The objective of this body of work is to expand the boundaries of painting by fully integrating the mechanical mind and organic body. This will be achieved by investigating the resulting subconscious visions in a shamanic manner.
Pietro Catarinella lives and works in Milan. An architect by training, he completed a master’s degree in fine art photography at Central Saint Martins in London in 2014. It is at this time that he defines his artistic practice: a research with a digital genesis that questions the changes of reality and visual representation in the era of the Internet, social networks and new media.
His work have been exhibited in important foundations and museums both in Italy and abroad including Zebrastaad / Foundation Liedts-Meesen, Ghent, Belgium (2025), Wuhan Art Museum Qintai, China (2024), Francesco Fabbri Foundation, Pieve di Soligo, Italy (2022 and 2019), Baco, Base Arte Contemporanea Odierna, Bergamo, Italy (2021), Fondazione Pini, Milan, Italy (2020), Macro, Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, Italy (2019).
He was a finalist in the following awards: NTAa ‘25 - New Technological Art Award | Finalist (2025 - ongoing), Prisma Art Prize (2024), Premio Francesco Fabbri - Contemporary Photography (2022 and 2019), Lumen Prize (2019 and 2017), Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize (2018) and winner at the Premio Ora (2019).