The painter who looks into the eyes of artificial intelligence

He enjoys explaining the creative process, the peculiarities of each work of art and his innovative method. Fernando Núñez’s eyes shine as he talks about his paintings. And what is so evident in the natural world, just a short distance from him, is extremely difficult to capture in an oil portrait. No model could hold onto that emotion in their gaze for that length of time. It does not matter if it is a look of sadness, reminiscence, expectation, surprise or fear, no one could hold onto that emotion using only their eyes and without altering the rest of their face. A person cannot – at least not easily – but artificial intelligence (AI) can.

Fernando Núñez, an artist by vocation and lawyer by profession, looks into the eyes of AI in his new exhibition at the Centro Cultural MVA. On display are 22 portraits painted with traditional materials to which he adds an extra step earlier in the creative process using AI tools. Miradas Cruzadas will be in the gallery’s rooms in Calle Ollerías until 29 November.

As the exhibition title suggests, Núñez shares this obsession that recurs in the history of art, the obsession of transmitting feelings through, and with, the eyes. “The gaze is the best form of non-verbal communication,” he says. Here there are lost glances and others that focus directly on the viewer, also expressions of calm and others that transmit a sense of unease, and some seem frightened while others look expectant. Curiously enough some of them correspond to real people.

“But there is no part of the painting that is not made with a brush, spatula, pigments, paint. That is, with conventional means,” he insists. Núñez relies on technology only in the initial stages of a painting, those that were previously achieved through making sketches and “the patience of models.” “Artificial Intelligence has helped me to generate a complete range of feelings without having to resort to people,” he explains.

The artist uses different AI applications in which he defines and contextualises what he is looking for through his verbal instructions, or prompts as they are often called. For example: he will ask for the image of a woman’s face, with pale-coloured eyes, between 25 and 35 years old, with light coming in from the top of the image, with a sad look on her face.

Although AI’s response is immediate, the result that the artist is looking for is not so forthcoming. The requirements must be much more fine-tuned to “guide” the technology and not have it “hallucinate”. “I have made it make hundreds and hundreds of images and in the end I have managed to capture what a look should have so that it has something missing, so that it is thoughtful, so that it is reflective.” His reasoning is that it is not only about the distance between the pupils or the focus of the eyes’ attention, it is the whole thing with the position of the face and the angle towards which the gaze converges. “And that something else is what AI has given me,” says Núñez.

After that stage comes the craft: his skill with the brush and his ability to envelop each perfect, spotless face that AI throws at him with its own ambience. As Francisco Cabrera (a San Telmo academic and curator of the exhibition) explains, there are three large groups of images:with flowers, with spheres and with metallic elements, a typical feature in this artist’s work. Each of these influences the colour and light of the painting, giving it a different character. In Joven de los 6 Claveles Rojos, one of the few portraits where the subject looks directly at the viewer, it is these flowers that determine the tone of the piece. Similarly, in Efebo Heterocrómico y Esferas it is the metallic tone that dominates the entire composition.

His style

Núñez does not present the synthetic faces produced by AI any old how. He categorises them into different looks, like Mirada asimétrica, or transforming them into machines in Mirada Perdida y Metalizada or in Perfil Híbrido. In Nostalgia en Caroscuro con Rosas he gives them a very candid look surrounded by flowers.

He also revisits classical works of art, bringing them into his own realm. This happens with his Pseudo-Gioconda, where the Mona Lisa appears surrounded by metal rivets of varying sizes and also in Mirada Renacentista, where he builds a modern structure of metal plates superimposed on a face that harks back to classical serenity. His canvases always come in a square format to make it easier for the image to be seen at a glance, in a “single stroke”.

Miradas Cruzadas, in summary, proposes a journey of introspection, “a world where silence and the depth of glances communicate more than words,” says Manuel López Mestanza, provincial delegate for culture in Malaga. A QR code is available in each room explaining the unique features of each piece.

This is not the first time that Núñez has teamed up with artificial intelligence to create art. He did so a little over a year ago for his exhibition IA: Pigmentos en Tránsito, at the MAD (the provincial authority’s art museum) in Antequera, but that has already become outdated. “AI evolves at such a speed that, if I tried to paint these paintings today, they would be different from those that are hanging up. It’s like a horse race that has no finish line,” says Núñez. He describes himself as a “doctor of law turned painter, or a painter who navigates the complex twists and turns of the law in robes.” Whatever it is, as his friend Cabrera says, “he does both things masterfully.”