Ethan Miller has a BFA from San Jose State University, and an MFA from the CADRE program at SJSU. He lives and works in San Jose, CA.
I began this series as AI tools capable of writing text and code were becoming widespread. I develop code that guides a pen plotter to draw on paper or panel, translating visual input into layered lines that trace or fill areas of color and tone. I then paint over these marks, return to the plotter, and continue building successive layers.
I am both embracing and rejecting technology. I use an AI assistant when I write code, and I allow a machine to co-create my paintings with me. At a moment when technology is becoming so polished it’s difficult to detect, it’s important to me to keep it visible. I want both the technology and my human touch to remain visible and in balance.
Another opposition I like to keep present is between chaos and order. Instinctively, we assume technology embodies order and hand-painted elements embody chaos. In a sense this is true — I try to keep my mark-making loose and unpredictable. Yet there’s an inversion when the body’s habits come into play: certain ways of holding a brush, or moving the wrist and elbow, become predictable. Familiar ways of handling paint and color return again and again. There is control through the hand, while at the same time control is ceded to a machine that makes its own marks. Code can have bugs and glitches and produce unexpected results. Even when it runs perfectly, the revealed forms often differ from what was imagined. In that sense, the machine becomes the element of chaos.