AI UNIVERSE 2425

Exhibition 3 May - 1 June 2025
opening night 2 may, 5pm - 10pm
Charles De Cordier Fine Arts, Henegouwenstraat 119, 9000 Ghent (B)

Welcome to AI UNIVERSE 2425, an upcoming exhibition that fuses the soul of handmade sculpture with the limitless potential of artificial intelligence. This project—the latest chapter in my AI UNIVERSE series—merges traditional craftsmanship with advanced technology to craft an immersive, unified world. Here, my clay sculptures and drawings—rooted in fifteen years of practice—are influenced by AI trained on my own sculptural work, igniting a creative exchange that accelerates my process and unveils expansive universes I could never have envisioned alone.

The Development of AI UNIVERSE
The journey to AI UNIVERSE began in early 2023, when ChatGPT’s release unveiled a computing power I’d never witnessed. Tasks that once took hours—like writing—reached 80% completion in minutes, speeding up my process eightfold. That jolt of efficiency sparked a deeper resolve: I had to understand AI, not just use it. I’d seen my parents’ generation falter with the rise of computers and the internet, left behind by a wave they couldn’t ride. Determined not to face the same fate, I dove into reading and experimenting, initially with tools like Stable Diffusion. My first goal was modest—build a model to act as a digital showroom for my sculptures, trained on their forms. But as I fed it images and refined its output, I realised this was no mere tool; it was a second brain, a companion that could expand my imagination beyond the physical limits I’d once known. So, I invested in a powerful computer and began training Flux 1, an offline text-to-image AI model, using dozens of painstakingly edited photographs of my sculptures—sometimes 65 per piece, each refined over hours in Photoshop to strip away backgrounds and shadows. This wasn’t a quick fix; it demanded the same grit as sculpting clay.

The results were revelatory. By embedding my sculptural language into the AI, I unlocked a tool that not only mirrored my style but extended it. Flux 1 became a creative partner, generating landscapes, machines, and phenomena—oceans, explosions—all in a sculptural aesthetic that felt inherently mine. Sifting through thousands of outputs, I’d refine ten or twenty at a time, steering the process to align with my vision. These 2D visuals, instantly recognisable as extensions of my physical work, shrank a decade into months, offering previews of entire worlds I could then bring to life by hand.

This fusion evolved rapidly in 2024 and 2025. Where I once crafted autonomous sculptures, I now build entire environments and concepts—cohesive universes that breathe my formal language. My first public step into this realm came in October 2023 at Nodenaysteen in Gent, where AI-generated drawings of satellites hung alongside their hand-sculpted twins. The AI surprised me with ideas like triangular solar panels—a shift from my usual straight lines—that I eagerly moulded into clay. This interplay laid the groundwork for what AI UNIVERSE 2425 would become.

The Vision for AI UNIVERSE 2425
AI UNIVERSE 2425—my upcoming exhibition named for the transformative strides of 2024 and 2025—presents a fully realised environment where handmade sculptures and AI-generated imagery intertwine. Now close to delivery, it will open on 2 May 2025 at Charles De Cordier Fine Arts in Ghent (17:00–22:00), inviting you into a space teeming with sculptures inspired by the AI’s boundless output. And drawings, traced from digital creations on a tablet, will hang alongside sculptures that render those visions in clay, creating a seamless dialogue between the virtual and the real. This isn’t a one-way process: as I sculpt anew, those works feed back into the AI, sparking fresh images to fuel further creations.

The title 2425 embodies my optimism—a sculptor’s leap into a future where technology and human craft amplify each other. Creativity that once took decades now unfolds in months, with AI visualising concepts of total environments—ideas I’d never have tackled before the actual sculpting. Yet, the exhibition’s core remains handmade. Every piece carries my mark—blood, sweat, and tears—while the AI serves as a second mind, stretching my imagination beyond physical limits.

Although AI flips the possibilities every month, this approach has its limitations. My hardware lags behind server-grade systems, and overtraining the AI can narrow its scope. But these are small obstacles in a process where possibilities grow daily. The real frontier is my own vision’s limitations—and here, AI propels me forward.

An invitation to explore
AI UNIVERSE 2425 beckons you into a cosmos of my making—a celebration of progress, energy, and the thrill of creation. Experience this exhibition from May 2 to June 1, 2025, at Charles De Cordier Fine Arts in Ghent (9000), where fifteen years of sculptural practice distills into a vision of tomorrow.

AI UNIVERSE 2425
Opening night: 2 May 2025
Exhibition: 3 May - 1 June 2025
Open Thursday through Sunday, 12:00 to 18:00.
Charles De Cordier Fine Arts - Henegouwenstraat 119, 9000 Ghent (B)

Digital drawing