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"NAKED FLAMES is a new exploration of something I was inspired by in 2018 combined with the ideas from my last project, PAINTING WITH FIRE: A HISTORY IN GANS. The first piece Robbie Barrat released on SuperRare was art from a model of paintings of nudes from the 1700s to 1900s from the public domain wikiart.org site. I wanted to play with mixing these paintings of nudes with images of fire.
The fire images I curated one by one from public domain sources, my photographs, my oscilloscope fire drawings, and ones submitted by a few of the collectors of my art. I asked collectors to send me their photographs of fire. I included forest fires, campfires, stove burners, cars on fire, and basically any image with fire in it. I drew my own line drawings of fire with an oscilloscope.
I was also working with two ideas: fire as technology. Fire is a type of ancient technology that changed the way humans live. And the idea of the nude as the human frailty and the existence as a being that needs protection they create for themselves. In this way, I can clothe the human form with an armor of fire.
I also envisioned the fire as a way the ancients tried to predict the future or were inspired by stories of the gods. Because of our ability to interpret patterns in random events, the fire is again a symbol of technology and AI to me. I use it to inspire stories and predict things, so it is like its ancient ancestor fire.
Another driving force for me was a desire to make art with a hint of the figurative. But often, the models generate surprises. It often takes the concepts I have wrapped up in my symbology and produces something completely different. A goal of mine in this is to control AI and give the art being produced a human touch despite all the technology."
– Bård Ionson
