Chuck Anderson

IMAGINED WRECKAGE is a project about amalgamation, born from my lifelong fascination with the question: “What happens if I add this to that?” The introduction of AI software allowed me to integrate my vocabulary into my artwork in a new way. Initially, the results were crude and often humorous, but the experience of explaining my vision with words and visual references and receiving instant results was undeniably revelatory. This marked the birth of a powerful, complex, and bizarre creative tool, reminiscent of my early experiences with Microsoft Paint in the ’90s and my first illegal download of Photoshop 6 in 2000.

AI became truly powerful for me when I integrated its results into my existing practice, using AI outputs as a foundation to be built on, molded, broken down, and rebuilt with specificity. IMAGINED WRECKAGE began entirely in Photoshop using the Generative Fill tool in October 2023. The idea started with a simple sculpture of a marble slab with a large screw driven through it. This premise evolved into more involved studies, which I brought into Midjourney with added language, images, and references to textures. The final images were upscaled and color-corrected in Photoshop to add details, refine compositions, and remove unwanted AI artifacts.

These digital prototypes have led to surprising new experiments in my studio, energizing me to explore physical iterations using epoxy resin combined with inkjet prints, hardware, flowers, and other materials. Amalgamation. I feel like a kid again, continuously asking, “What happens when I add this to that?” Objects, forms, colors, and textures coalesce into something wholly new.

What happens when a layer of opalescent cellophane is draped over a black powder-coated motorcycle? What happens when metal spikes from a punk’s leather jacket are added to a panel of neon plexiglass? What happens when vines are added to an engine that’s been combined with a logic board and overlaid with a delicate wire grid? Each answer, I hope, brings that revelatory feeling of a seminal creative experience to me and the viewer.