{"id":2492039,"date":"2026-07-07T15:18:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T15:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2492039"},"modified":"2026-07-07T15:18:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T15:18:00","slug":"ai-and-the-pixelation-of-the-real-arts-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/ai-and-the-pixelation-of-the-real-arts-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"AI and the pixelation of the real | Arts & Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Carbondale artist Nicholas Ward discusses his work with a visitor during last Thursday\u2019s opening of \u201cBetween the Real,\u201d his exhibition at Aspen Collective.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n Geoff Hanson\/Aspen Daily News<\/span>
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Carbondale artist Nicholas Ward\u2019s oil paintings depict simple moments from everyday life. He embeds them with significance from forces that are unseen in the canvases but are affecting the paintings themselves \u2014 technology and artificial intelligence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His new exhibition,\u201cBetween the Real,\u201d opened last week at Aspen Collective, 213 S. Mill St., and runs through July 15.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The show features two distinct sections. Upon entering the gallery, one is presented with seven colorful oil paintings; in the back part of the gallery, there is a series of eight charcoal drawings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis exhibition began as an exploration of memory, storytelling, and ritual but morphed into my own grappling with life amidst omnipresent and ever advancing technology,\u201d Ward said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the paintings, reality gradually begins to fracture. Figures acquire extra arms; dresses dissolve into pixel-like fragments; individual stories unfold inside larger stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The progression mirrors what Ward imagines happens when AI repeatedly processes and reprocesses information and in so doing, gets further and further away from the original subject matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou put a prompt into AI, and if you keep bouncing it off itself, it slowly devolves further and further away from this recognizable thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ward\u2019s concern is not so much the technology but the rituals themselves, such as how cell phones pull people\u2019s attention away from the present moment and into some other distraction \u2014\u00a0 and how that affects the way humans perceive reality and one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is almost this worship of the phone and AI,\u201d Ward said. \u201cI got to thinking about how technology draws us away from those rituals, the distraction and the fracturing of that time and intention.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween the Real\u201d is less a critique of technology and AI than a meditation on what remains uniquely human as technology becomes increasingly woven into daily life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe core concept was to explore human connection through rituals,\u201d Ward said while walking through the exhibition before its opening last Thursday. \u201cThe intention behind doing something \u2014 giving it your full attention \u2014 is what makes it a ritual.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Artist Nicholas Ward stands next to one of the oil paintings that make up his exhibition \u201cBetween the Real.\u201d It runs through July 15 at Aspen Collective.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n Geoff Hanson\/Aspen Daily News<\/span>
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Ward isn\u2019t interested in declaring technology as good or bad. Instead, he sees himself wrestling with two very different forms of connection. One is immediate, tactile and grounded in the physical world \u2014 gardening, dancing, caring for animals, sharing stories. The other exists in a digital space that often feels strangely real despite lacking humanity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are studies now about lonely elderly people having AI companions,\u201d Ward said. \u201cPart of me thinks that\u2019s dystopian. But another part thinks, \u2018Well, that beats being lonely.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Ward traces the concept behind the show to science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke\u2019s observation that \u201cany sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like even the creators don\u2019t fully understand what\u2019s happening inside these AI systems,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m interested in that space between what feels real to us and this new world happening alongside our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Ward\u2019s favorite paintings, \u201cGunning for Gold at the Tunbridge World\u2019s Fair,\u201d grew out of an oversized sunflower in his garden. After measuring the nearly 13-foot plant, his father-in-law jokingly replied that it resembled a winner at the Tunbridge World\u2019s Fair (which is actually a tiny little fair in a small town).<\/p>\n

Ward turned the family joke into one of the exhibition\u2019s most joyful paintings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really about humor and earnestness,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a genuine pride hiding in that figure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story also illustrates another thread running throughout Ward\u2019s show: storytelling itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been a very good verbal storyteller,\u201d he said. \u201cPainting is my way of telling stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ward\u2019s paintings intentionally leave room for viewers to participate in the narrative.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of my artistic vision is creating stories that are only partially complete,\u201d he said. \u201cThe viewer finishes them. We all bring our own histories and moments and associations. The pieces in this show want to be talked to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The storytelling thread also is expressed in the back of the gallery through his series \u201cEn Masse,\u201d which consists of eight charcoal drawings cut from a single large composition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unlike the oil paintings, Ward said the charcoals are not directly connected to the AI narrative. Instead, they explore movement, dance and what might exist just beyond the edge of the images.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to explore what\u2019s happening just off the frame,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ward said he hopes visitors leave his show contemplating whether they are still making time for the small rituals that make them feel alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope people find something they relate to in the show,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I also hope they question their own use of technology and think about how they can have more intention in whatever their small ritual is \u2014 making coffee, watering sunflowers, dancing, whatever it is \u2014 because what still feels most real and meaningful is often the simplest human experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.aspendailynews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carbondale artist Nicholas Ward discusses his work with a visitor during last Thursday\u2019s opening of \u201cBetween the Real,\u201d his exhibition at Aspen Collective.\u00a0 Geoff Hanson\/Aspen Daily News Carbondale artist Nicholas Ward\u2019s oil paintings depict simple moments from everyday life. He embeds them with significance from forces that are unseen in the canvases but are affecting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2492040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[412834],"class_list":["post-2492039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-lead-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AI-and-the-pixelation-of-the-real-Arts.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2492039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2492039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2492039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2492041,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2492039\/revisions\/2492041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2492040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2492039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2492039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2492039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}