David Salle: How I taught an AI to think like a painter An essay by the artist

'There is a certain type of artist who yearns to go beyond the contents of their own head. I have long wished for a truly malleable painterly space, one that has the velocity and dynamism of great abstract painting, only fashioned out of figuration, made with images.

There is also a history of artists embracing technological innovation; silkscreen, video, neon — everything was new once, even oil paint. Photography was thought to signal the death of painting, until artists as diverse as Thomas Eakins and Edgar Degas started using it in their work. Now we have artificial intelligence. Could AI help realise my vision of a fluid pictorial space, exempt from the laws of gravity?' – David Salle