The new school year 2024 - 2025 at my local academy in ‘Sint-Niklaas’ has started again.
This is already my 11th year. I am starting a 2 year course ‘2D Model Specialization’, the continuation of my previous course.
M2I The Promise
I am going to focus again on expanding my ‘March 2 Infinity’ and related universe(s). There will also be some new and exciting developments taking place, which unfortunately I cannot release any information about at this time, but keep an eye on my site for future news.
Looking forward to yet another creative year.
Steven
Academy Graduation Exposition 2024
I will graduate this year from the D’Academie Beeld van Sint-Niklaas. And that includes an exhibition where you can admire the students’ works.
Academy Expo Graduation
I am showing a selection of my works from the art series ‘March 2 Infinity’.
You can find more information regarding the exposition on the academy site (NL).
My works will be shown at the ‘Collegekerk’.
Looking forward to see you there,
Steven
NEW M2I Art Series 'Flowerheads'
I am pleased to announce the birth of a new art series.
“Flowerheads” is the next chapter within the ‘March 2 Infinity’ universum.
New M2I Art Series
Flowerheads
A movement within the transhumanists, grown from a desire to return to the roots of the symbiosis between humans and nature, a symbiosis that was once self-evident on the home planet.
An idea born as a reaction against the relentless quest of their fellow transhumanists to become gods by embracing machines and technological advancement.
Using the same advanced technology, seeds are implanted into the head and body and nourished until they grow into full-fledged plants and live in symbiosis with the human form, creating the next counter-revolution in the evolution of transhumanism.
Rumor has it that some of them still live on Earth in floating cities, high in the sky above the polluted planet, where they use the warm, embracing light of the sun for their continued symbiotic, organic evolution.
Transhuman in symbiose with Nature
The new art series will depict portraits of transhumanists using oils & charcoal as the main drawing mediums.
I am looking forward to further develop this new art series and discover how it evolves and interacts with the other series.
My local academy Sint-Niklaas (Belgium) is having its ‘open doors day’ this weekend. People can freely visit all the class rooms and get to know the various disciplines and look at the created art by the students.
Academy Open Door 1
A selection of my ‘Mars 2 Infinity’ art works are on display as well. You can find them in the class room and in the hallway.
The academy group exposition ‘Model X’ came to an end last sunday. It was a great success with over 1000 visitors during these 3 weeks and an overall very positive reaction.
Expo Model X
Over 30 students of the ateliers ‘Living Model 2D & 3D’ exhibited together a great variety of their works. The response of the visitors was very positive and praised the variety and quality of the showed works.
The exposition will take place on location in the heart of Sint-Niklaas, Stationsstraat 43, in an empty building that is being taken decorated by the students and teachers.
I am happy to announce the release of the new website for my M2I art series.
New M2I Website
The M2I site is now fully dedicated to the ‘March 2 Infinity’ universe with more details on the main story lines, the expanding universum and of course all the related art.
Expect more content to come soon.
Kind Regards,
Steven
NEW M2I Art
The year at the academy is progressing and the collection of new ‘March 2 Infinity’ art is taking shape.
New M2I Art
The ‘March 2 Infinity’ art series depicts our world in a future far away. Those who could afford it, enhanced their bodies & minds and fled to the stars eons ago. The offspring of the poor souls left behind are since then scavenging the desolated earth in search of long forgotten technology in an attempt to become gods themselves and join their destiny between the stars.
Forsaken lands with black stones
The old prophecies talk about huge black stones within the landscape that should contain the secrets for a life in the clouds and beyond. Holy stories told for centuries already by the spirits healers & priests of these new religions.
Groups of damaged and broken bodies are since then forever scavenging the lands, in search of hope, between the desolated and ruined remains of what was once human society.
Groups of damaged and broken bodies
The ‘story’ is still being developed and I am seeing much potential for further story telling.
From a materials point of view I am trying to use a mixture of charcoal drawings and often thin downed oil painting on gessoed board & thick paper. Technique wise I am searching for an expressive tone while still maintaining readability. I experiment on smaller boards but also bigger sized canvas.
Atelier bigger M2I
I am looking forward to further investigate this artistic path.
Kind Regards,
Steven
Academy New Year
The new school year 2022 - 2023 at my local academy in ‘Sint-Niklaas’ has started again.
This will be my 9th year already. Time sure does fly.
M2I Fallen Tribunes
I am going to focus again on expanding my ‘March 2 Infinity’ art series and universe. Including new landscapes of our desolate world, torned away figures in search of their hope in the skies and beyond and portraits of transhumanists in search of the eternal life.
M2I Hope
The first weeks brought already inspiration, various sketches and some new works …
Looking forward to yet another creative year.
Steven
Academy Retrospect 2021-2022
Yet another school year has passed at my local art academy in Sint-Niklaas (Belgium).
This year I have been focusing mostly on working on my ‘March 2 Infinities - Landscapes’ art series and I began to explore the new ‘Transhumanists’ art series.
Art is created using either traditional media like charcoal / oil paintings or using purely digital means. Combinations of both occur as well. Computer AI is used sometimes to generate new reference materials based upon existing own works.
It are definitely exciting times as an artist to explore and find new creative paths.
Transhumanist - Drawing WIP
March 2 Infinity - Landscapes
“The March to Infinity had departed. Will Humanity make the right choices?”
Story
Within this art series I explore the impact of technology on the future of mankind - which has made itself nearly gods by applying extensions onto their own bodies & souls.
M2I TRADQAN
Earth however is rampaged by centuries of exploitation and technology misusages. The lucky (wealthy) ones fled to the stars and left this barren world ages ago. The unfortunates, who were left behind, are roaming the lands in search of huge black stones which should contain the information to reach the skies and the technologies to upgrade their wrecked bodies. Or at least that’s what the prophecies claim.
Eons have since then passed …
M2I Landscapes Exposition
Wrecked bodies scavenging the lands in search for that forgotten knowledge.
Hopeful they are longing for the eternal life among their brothers & sisters at the stars.
Art Techniques
Barren landscapes are depicted using traditional oil painting inter mangled with AI driven reference generation based upon my own (traditional) works.
A new traditional work is created upon an AI generated reference on heavy gessoed paper or canvas using oil paints.
The new work can then be served again to the AI for a new reference generation.
And thus an unendless feedback loop is created and continued …
M2I TRADQAN WIP
I created the term (abbreviation) ‘TRADQAN’ to indicate this kind of work progress.
Future
I created several new works within this series and I am planning to continue to explore even more.
You can discover the art series at my Contemporary website. Various works are already available as NFT on OBJKT marketplace which runs on the CleanNFT blockchain Tezos .
M2I Landscape - TRADQAN
March 2 Infinity - Transhumanists
Story
’Transhumanism’ is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition. (WIKI)
Technology (mis)used to modify one owns human body to reach the status of gods.
But does unchecked, wild & dangerous changes to one self modifies ones soul as well? Nobody knows.
Results often madly gone wrong. Only a happy few that reach the goal of eternity.
M2I Transhumanism
Art Techniques
This new art series depicts portraits of modified humans using a raw painting technique of oils mixed with charcoal on heavy gessoed paper.
Transhumanist - Initial drawing
Transhumanist - Oils WIP
Future
I am planning on creating an extensive range of portraits. I might consider launching these series as a new NFT collection.
Retrospect
I am quite happy with my progress and new creative paths.
I am definitely looking forward to a new year to continue exploring these art series.
Steven
Academy Open Doors
My local academy Sint-Niklaas (Belgium) is having its ‘open doors day’ this weekend. People can freely visit all the class rooms and get to know the various disciplines and look at the created art by the students.
Academy Open Door 1
My traditional AI based art works are on display as well. You can find them in the class room and in the hallway.
I am participating in the exposition ‘PARADE’ at the art academy in my home town Sint-Niklaas (Belgium).
Exposition PARADE
I am displaying some of my new “tradqan” oil paintings from my ‘March 2 Infinity’ art series.
The art series examines the impact of technology on humankind and the quest for Transhumanism. The works themselves are created using a process of feeding my own traditional oil paintings into an AI computer model which then generates new images. Those new images are then used as a source for creating a new traditional oil painting. And then the process restarts …
Students will also work in the exposition area during normal class hours so feel free to drop by and say hello.
