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Elsa Carvalho: The Art of Impermanence

Pau Waelder

Elsa Carvalho’s path into visual art began not in a studio, but in the structured logic of computer science. A Portuguese software engineer with a PhD completed in 2012, she turned toward artistic creation in 2021, at a moment when the NFT movement opened new doors for digital experimentation. On the occasion of her solo artcast The Unfolding on Niio, we asked her a series of questions about her artistic practice and creative process.

In this conversation, Carvalho reflects on how poetry and coding share a common ground in working within constraints, how open access to AI tools made image-making accessible to her as a newcomer to visual art, and how she gradually moved from early experimentation toward a more personal visual language.

Elsa Carvalho. TheUnfolding#1, 2025.

You work as a software engineer but you have also always been interested in the arts, and have written poetry and prose. How would you relate poetry and literature to creative coding?

In my professional practice I always felt that coding is a very creative activity. Although this may seem counterintuitive, because it is full of rules and constraints, the fact is that you are creating something and, in the end, a result will emerge. There are different ways of achieving the same result, and the process of searching for and choosing a path is something I find very appealing. Often, what matters is not only the final output, but the decisions made along the way.

The same happens with writing. There are rules in language as well, but they can be bent or broken for poetic reasons. In creative coding I feel a similar freedom: working within constraints, but still allowing intuition, experimentation, and small deviations that can change the outcome.  

“Creative coding means working within constraints, but still allowing intuition, experimentation, and small deviations that can change the outcome.”

You decided to dive into visual art in 2021, at the time of the NFT boom. How did the NFT scene shape your understanding of art, and how has it evolved over the last years?

The NFT movement was the trigger for me to start exploring digital art. It felt like something important was happening and I wanted to be part of it, not to be left out of what seemed like a meaningful way to step into digital creation. In many ways, it was the entry point that allowed me to discover this artistic side of myself.

At that time, I had no experience with digital art, and that was one of the reasons AI attracted me so much. It opened the possibility to experiment visually without a traditional background. In that sense, AI felt very democratizing, allowing many people, including myself, to explore image-making in a more accessible way.

More recently, my relationship with that space has changed. I became more interested in slower processes and in developing a personal visual language. Discovering platforms like Niio, where my work can exist on large screens or in people’s living spaces, appeals to me more now than the NFT space itself. Still, I feel I will always be connected to that movement, as it was the precursor to my entry into the artistic world, and I owe a lot to it for opening that door.

Elsa Carvalho. TheUnfolding#2, 2025.

As a software expert, you know how software can shape what a user is able to do or even think they can do. Over the last decades, artists working with code have developed new tools that allow them to bypass the limitations of commercial software, and created a community around sharing. What do you think of this open source movement and how has it helped you as an artist?

I think the open source movement is very relevant and powerful. One of its biggest strengths is that it allows people to bypass the high costs of commercial software and to build tools together that anyone can use. This kind of shared effort has a real impact and reaches millions of people.

In my own practice, I did not take full advantage of artist-led open source tools, but open access to AI algorithms was essential for me in the beginning. Having Google notebooks available, with increasingly better GAN models and later other algorithms, was what allowed me to start experimenting with AI and image generation.

I also used non-paid platforms like Artbreeder, especially in my early exploration, alongside commercial AI tools. So my path was a mix of open, shared resources and proprietary software. Without that initial access to open algorithms and notebooks, I probably would not have entered this field in the same way.

“Discovering platforms like Niio, where my work can exist on large screens or in people’s living spaces, appeals to me more now than the NFT space itself.”

You use creative coding to generate visuals that then feed into an AI model to create a unique visual language. Can you take us through this process?

My process usually starts with creative coding. Through code, I generate images with more geometric structures, and this is where the core aesthetic of the work is defined. At this stage, I also establish the color palette and the visual coherence that runs through the series.

These images then become the starting point for the use of AI. AI allows me to introduce more organic qualities into the visuals, inspired by natural forms. It transforms the geometric structures and adds a layer of complexity and softness that I could not achieve through code alone.

From there, I curate the resulting images and use them as the basis for video works. I use AI tools to create the videos, either by introducing movement into the images or by morphing between different images. This final step allows the work to unfold over time and reinforces the idea of transformation that is central to my practice.

“I started my artistic practice with a mix of open, shared resources and proprietary software. Without that initial access to open algorithms and notebooks, I probably would not have entered this field in the same way.”

Both creative coding and artistic creation with AI deal with the tension between controlling the output and letting the program surprise you. How do you manage this tension? Do you sometimes fear that a good visual might be ruined once interpreted by the AI?

There is always a balance between control and surprise in my process. With creative coding, I have more control over structure, color, and overall direction. With AI, I accept that the visuals will change in ways I cannot fully predict.

Of course, there is always the risk that a visual I like might be altered in a way that does not work. But one of the pleasures of working with AI, and also with creative coding that includes some degree of randomness, is precisely the possibility of being surprised by the process.

Unexpected results often become important. Sometimes they even guide the direction I decide to follow. Rather than trying to protect a single image, I work through many variations and curate carefully, trusting that the process itself will lead me to the right outcomes.

Elsa Carvalho. TheUnfolding#3, 2025.

You have stated that your interest in organic forms stems from your childhood experiences in a farm, surrounded by animals and nature. Yet the forms you create are abstract and strongly evoke Surrealist painting. Why have you chosen this aesthetic?

Organic forms appeal to me a great deal, and that comes from growing up surrounded by animals and nature. Those experiences stayed with me, even if they are not represented in a direct or literal way.

At the same time, I am not interested in reproducing nature as it is. I prefer to work with suggestion rather than representation. By keeping the forms abstract, I can give hints instead of clear answers and leave space for the viewer’s own interpretation.

This approach allows me to connect personal memories with a more open visual language. The work does not describe something specific, but it can still evoke familiar sensations or emotions linked to nature.

Your early work shows more “mainstream” experimentation with AI, first applying textures to photographs of nature, then generating portraits of women with surreal elements, then moving into classical painting and surreal scenes that remind the work of Max Ernst and Paul Delvaux, as well as some photorealistic imaginary landscapes. What didn’t work for you in all these phases, that made you move forward? How have the advances in AI image generation contributed to this process?

It is interesting that you ask this question. When I started this path, not long ago, I met several Portuguese artists who were also involved in NFTs. I remember speaking with one of them about how to find my own style, and she explained it very simply: it can only happen with time, experimentation, and by understanding what makes sense for you at each moment.

In the early days, I was mainly exploring the tools. I was trying different approaches, testing what AI could do, and learning through practice. What did not work for me in those phases was the feeling that the results were too dependent on existing visual references, and that they resolved too quickly.

I enjoy experimenting, and I tend to move on when repetition becomes too comfortable. Over time, and with the advances in AI image generation, I was able to refine my process and gain more control. Now that my creation pipeline is better defined, it is easier for me to explore different themes while keeping a consistent process and aesthetic, which I hope is becoming more recognisable.

“One of the pleasures of working with AI, and also with creative coding, is precisely the possibility of being surprised by the process.”

Color plays an important role in your compositions, which feature deep blues and bright oranges and yellows, as well as a wide range of strongly contrasting colors that underline the constant changes taking place. How do you work with color? Does it serve purely compositional concerns or does it incorporate a particular meaning?

I work with a small set of color palettes that I use in a more or less random way during the creative coding phase. This helps give consistency to the final works, even when the forms and structures change.

I am very drawn to strong colors. Sometimes the world feels very grey, especially in the period we are going through, and I feel that people need strong colors in their lives. For me, color brings energy and intensity to the work.

There is no specific meaning attached to the colors I choose. Intuition plays an important role. In the end, the resulting colors are a mix of what comes from the initial coded image and what comes from the AI prompts, and I curate the results by choosing the images that appeal to me the most.

“Sometimes the world feels very grey, and I feel that people need strong colors in their lives. For me, color brings energy and intensity to the work.”

In the series tran·sience you collaborated with Bruno Miranda, who created a musical score for your compositions. Seeing the artworks with music almost feels as if the shapes are reacting to the score. How did this collaboration come to be? What does music bring to your work?

Bruno Miranda is my husband, and although music is not his day-to-day work, he has a strong passion for composition. The collaboration came very naturally, as it felt like a way to give the videos a stronger impact.

The process usually starts with the visuals. Once a video is ready, I ask him to create a musical composition for it, sometimes suggesting a mood or style. Music adds rhythm, movement, and emotional depth that the visuals alone cannot convey, making the work feel more alive and immersive.

Elsa Carvalho. TheUnfolding#4, 2025.

You have stated that impermanence is one of the most fundamental truths of life. Following this line of thought, where do you think your work might take you next? Have you considered video mapping, installation, sculpture, or other forms of creation?

Like my works, I tend to let life and intuition guide me. After several years working consistently on my process, sharing my work on X (ex-Twitter), and selling NFTs occasionally on different platforms, I began receiving more recognition. Instead of going after opportunities, I started getting invitations.

First, I was invited to sell my videos as NFTs on a well-known AI video platform. Later, platforms like Niio, which provide video artworks to be shown in public spaces or companies, invited me to submit my work so their clients could choose from my artworks. More recently, I was invited to create pieces for an important event here in Portugal. Challenges make our minds search for creative solutions, and if somebody challenges me to show my work in a different or innovative way, I will certainly try to make it happen. I prefer to let these kinds of invitations guide me and shape the work I explore next.

Valentina Ferrandes: Reshaping Icons

Niio Editorial

Valentina Ferrandes is an artist working across moving image, installation, and digital world-building, whose practice weaves together ecology, mythology, and the lived experience of place. Grounded in research and a documentary sensitivity to landscapes, archives, and historical traces, she shifted from filming toward constructing sensorial 3D environments, using scans, procedural tools, and real-time engines to let forms drift, fracture, and evolve. Classical sculpture and ancient narratives become both emotional anchors and critical material in her work: icons that carry through time, re-shaped through contemporary technologies into atmospheres of beauty and tension where political rupture can be felt indirectly through light, motion, and sound.

On the occasion of the launch of her solo artcast Metamorphoses: Myth, Body, and Code, we had a conversation about her work and creative process.

Valentina Ferrandes. Aurea, 2023

You describe your practice as connecting ecology, mythology, technology, and post-human imaginaries. When you start a new project, what drives it, the research, the story, or the technique you have chosen to produce it?

I normally start with research.

I’m interested in the way we live through environments and the stories that shape them. Myths, landscapes, architectures, archaeological traces. At first, these things appear separate; when you sit with them long enough, they begin to echo one another.

Only then do I choose the technique, the choice is never neutral.

Lately, I’ve been working with 3D motion, procedural tools, real-time engines, and 3D scans,  not to represent the world, but to build systems that can behave like it. Tools that allow things to drift, mutate, and occasionally slip out of control. Sometimes a project expands from a single shape, a scanned object from an archive, or material gathered through direct observation. That form becomes a world. Using game engines and procedural workflows, I stretch it, repeat it, let it evolve.

Ultimately, I’m trying to immerse the viewer in a mood, mostly driven by aesthetics, fragments of stories, and sensory tension, rather than by purely documentary logic.

Valentina Ferrandes. Still from Travelogue, 2018

You made experimental documentaries for years, then moved into CGI and real-time worlds. What changed for you around 2020 that made 3D the right language?

Around 2018 I made a film called Travelogue. It was a visual diary of a journey I took to Izmir in Turkey and then to the island of Kos, shot in a documentary register a couple of years back, right at the height of the Mediterranean migratory crisis. It followed my previous work Other Than Our Sea, where I used montage to collapse fragments of Mediterranean mythology, classical literature, ethnographic film, archival material, and glimpses of contemporary newsreels of shipwrecks in the Mediterranean into layered visual narratives.

But shooting Travelogue felt tougher as it touched something much closer. My family has a history of forced migration. Although Italian citizens, my father’s family had long-standing ties to Libya and Tunisia. After decades of living in Libya, they were compelled to return to Italy as refugees in the late 1970s. That sense of loss, of having to abandon an entire world to rebuild another, was something I grew up with. Filming along the semi-illegal routes in Turkey and Greece that many migrants were taking toward Europe, witnessing those crossings and the weight they carried, made me realise that documentary language had reached its limit for me.

Depicting reality no longer felt feasible. I didn’t want to record crises anymore but construct worlds that could allude to moments of rupture, holding some emotional truth but without reproducing their images directly.  I needed a medium that could be more sensorial, more abstract, and more heartfelt than documentary realism.

I had no language for it, so I stopped making films for a while.

“Depicting reality no longer felt feasible. I didn’t want to record crises anymore but construct worlds that could allude to moments of rupture.”

Then, around 2020, I turned to 3D. I began experimenting with scanned classical sculptures that had shaped my imagination growing up in southern Italy, fragments of classicity that, for me, functioned as emotional anchors. They were beautiful, but also quietly critical: stabilising forms in times of uncertainty, grounding while still provoking thought and aspiration. At the same time, I was going through a period of personal losses. Working in 3D allowed me to move away from documentation and toward construction: creating works driven by form, light, and colour rather than evidence.  Real-time worlds and CGI offered that kind of a-political space, a way to build beauty and tension, and to think about crisis indirectly, through atmosphere, motion, light and colour.

From that point on, my work shifted toward 3D hybrid forms.

Valentina Ferrandes. Victory, 2020


“Victory” treats Nike of Samothrace as something that can be algorithmically decomposed and rebuilt. What does computation allow you to “see” in sculpture that a camera cannot?

A camera can only register what is visible. It freezes what is already there. Computational tools do something else: they open the parameters to make instability visible and let you play with latent forms. Even the most solid material, like marble, is in reality energy in motion, atoms vibrating, matter constantly becoming. We just can’t see it.

In Victory, computation allows me to see sculpture as movement rather than image. When the Nike of Samothrace is translated into a 3D motion system, it stops being a fixed surface and becomes a fluid field of forces, basic geometries, vectors, and polygons that can shift, fracture, and reassemble.

“Even the most solid material, like marble, is in reality energy in motion, atoms vibrating, matter constantly becoming.”

In the Athena works, you connect a local pre-Christian cult, the olive tree, and the long chain of copies from Greece to Roman times and beyond. What does that continuity mean to you inside a digital artwork today?

We often think of digital media as something entirely new, as if it belongs only to the future. For me, however, digital tools are a means of reshaping icons that are already deeply ingrained in our collective memory.

In the Athena works, bringing together a local pre-Christian cult, the olive tree, and the long chain of copies creates a sense of continuity rather than rupture. Using a hyper-contemporary medium to work with ancient mythology opens up a different timeline, one where past and present coexist instead of replacing one another.

Classical icons are solid, almost a-temporal structures, narratives that can be applied to any moment in history, much like religious icons. They carry ethical, emotional and symbolic lessons that can stay legible across centuries.

“For me, digital tools are a means of reshaping icons that are already deeply ingrained in our collective memory.”

At the same time, I want my works to remain open. A digital artwork can be interpreted in various ways, ranging from a purely aesthetic encounter driven by form, light and rhythm to a more layered and reflective interpretation, depending on the viewer’s sensitivity and cultural background.

Digital tools don’t need to reject this legacy in favour of futuristic expectations. They enable us to revisit these foundational forms, reshape them, and discover new meanings within them. 

Valentina Ferrandes. Daaphne, 2022

You revisit Apollo and Daphne in both “Daaphne” and “Aurea.” Why return to that myth now, and what feels ethically or emotionally at stake in reanimating it with AI and procedural CGI?

This myth, at its core, stages a clear opposition: Apollo as a rational, male-driven force, mathematical, controlling, and oppressive, and Daphne as a figure bound to nature, freedom, and transformation. The moment of rupture between them could not be more explicit and in my work, I used AI to push that rupture even further.
I worked with an AI writing tool trained on game narratives and powered by a rudimentary version of GPT-3, fed it the story of Daphne as written in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and asked it to imagine what this nymph might wake up as after a set time as a laurel tree.

The AI imagined Daphne re-emerging as a post-human, hybrid being, part human, part aquatic, drifting in an underwater world, without language or memory, completely disoriented. I loved that the story had a hallucinatory, almost comic tone, like a futuristic fiction gone off-track.

“Daphne’s transformation is survival, a reminder that neither nature nor the systems we create can ever be fully governed by pure rationality.”

From there, I worked with 3D motion to animate forms suggested by the AI’s text. The work became a meditation on rupture at multiple levels: between human and nature, between rationality and excess, and between control and unpredictability. AI, in this sense, operates like an alter ego, a parallel intelligence that accelerates extraction, mutation, and instability.

In that way, the myth of Apollo and Daphne can be uncannily contemporary as it speaks to an enduring conflict: nature versus culture, rational order versus metamorphosis.  Apollo’s loss of power in the face of nature, something fundamentally uncontrollable, mirrors our relationship with AI today. We are building a system that behaves like a subconscious, one that evolves beyond our control, driven by its own form of self-preservation.

Daphne’s transformation is survival, a reminder that neither nature nor the systems we create can ever be fully governed by pure rationality.

Valentina Ferrandes. Midday Muse, 2022. Site-specific installation, META London Headquarters.


A lot of your work sits between fiction and documentation. How do you decide what must remain “true” and where you allow speculation to take over?

Usually, I decide on a set of rules, fixed conditions and boundaries for a given project.
I tend to ground a new work in real elements, a place, a historical fact, a piece of storytelling, a dataset, a myth that already exists, a landscape I’ve walked through. It’s almost a forensic layer to start building upon. This documentary approach anchors the work to the world as it is, while I use fiction to open a door to how it might feel, how it might mutate, or how it could be remembered in the future.

The balance is intuitive more than anything. What remains “true” is the research spine and the ethical position. Form, narrative, and atmosphere can drift in fluid ways.

Valentina Ferrandes. The Beautiful One Has Come, 2021.

Sound shows up as a structural element in several projects. Do you think of sound as world-building, as evidence, or as emotion?

When I began working on Daaphne, it was 2022, and the war in Ukraine had just started. One of the first elements I used in my soundtrack was a Russian lullaby,  a song meant to put children to sleep, but sung as an eerie horror story. I layered it with voices of phone calls from Russian mothers trying to find out where their sons had disappeared on the battlefield.

These sounds were among the first field recordings to surface from the conflict. They weren’t yet shaped by long-form reporting or political framing. They were raw, deeply human, and I knew they would soon be buried under 24h news coverage. I wanted to hold onto them before they disappeared. I’m drawn to these small, fragile fragments of reality, pieces of evidence that are emotionally charged but not always fully legible. They speak of a specific moment in time, yet they slip away easily, like trying to remember a conversation heard in a dream just after waking.

Much of the sound material I work with also comes from evidence: archival recordings, field recordings I collect myself, binaural sound, fragments of voiceover. But it’s almost always assembled as a collage. Sound often becomes the backbone of my work but it does not demand that everything be decoded. If someone wants to sit with it and trace the details, that’s possible. If not, the surface remains open.

Valentina Ferrandes. Bloom, 2024. Site-specific 3D animation, Night Lights Denver

In “BLOOM,” classical iconography is projected onto a city landmark. What draws you to public architecture as a screen, and what do you want viewers to feel at that scale?

Public architecture is interesting because it operates at a scale where meaning turns physical. Facades, towers, and landmarks are symbols of power, progress, and permanence. Using them as screens immediately creates a shift in perception.

In BLOOM, projecting classical iconography onto a hypermodern skyline for Denver Night Lights meant staging a clash of meanings. On one side, you have contemporary architecture, on the other, a classical image that many viewers may never have encountered directly, unless they’ve visited the museum that houses it. That displacement is intentional.

“Classical iconography carries a quiet power because it transcends specific cultures to communicate through beauty rather than explanation.”

At that scale, the work isn’t meant to be fully legible. It’s meant to interrupt routine, to slow people down, and to create a brief moment of disconnection from the everyday flow of the city. Ultimately, to leave space for a  few minutes of awe.

Ultimately, classical iconography carries a quiet power because it transcends specific cultures and historical knowledge to communicate through beauty rather than explanation. When placed on an urban skyline like Denver’s, it opens up a small pocket of dreaming,  a moment of wonder appearing where it doesn’t quite belong.

Saeko Ehara: filling the world with Kirakira

Yui Taniguchi and Pau Waelder

An artist and VJ based in Tokyo, Saeko Ehara’s work is deeply influenced by kirakira, a Japanese term that can be translated as “sparkling” and defines a peculiar visual language. Glittering objects, flowers, and shiny clothing express joy and playfulness in Manga, popular culture, music, fashion, and contemporary art. It is one of the many ways in which Japanese artists overcome the distinction between “high” and “low” culture, by introducing elements from popular culture into their artworks and making them an integral part of their œuvre. Well-known artists such as Takashi Murakami or Yayoi Kusama have popularized this characteristically Japanese approach to contemporary art, which in Ehara’s work takes a new dimension in the form of immersive 3D animations, sometimes created from real environments and objects. 

Saeko Ehara aims to inspire positive feelings and provide a space of contemplation and recovery through her kirakira artworks, gradually feeling the world with joyful visual experiences. Following the recent launch of her solo artcast Kirakira World, the artist shares with us some insights about her work and the creative process behind it.

Saeko Ehara. KiraKira Sweet Pink, 2022

Kirakira is a major aspect of your work. You state that it connects with your childhood and also with the experience of escaping from reality. Do you think that kirakira is about escaping reality? Is it a way to avoid the darkest aspects of everyday life by finding a safe and joyful space in a fantasy world?

Kirakira is not an escape from reality. For me, Kirakira represents the most primal sense of awe I experienced in childhood, and I want to share that feeling with the world through my work. I’m not expressing it to escape from painful experiences, but rather, I hope it serves as a source of encouragement and recovery for myself and for viewers when faced with difficulties.

“I hope that Kirakira serves as a source of encouragement and recovery for myself and for viewers when faced with difficulties.”

In terms of its visual appearance, kirakira heavily relies on sparkling effects and reflective textures. How does that translate into your work with 3D animation? Is it challenging? Do you need many resources to create the elements you look for? Please tell us a bit about the making of the artworks.

Before using AI, I mainly used TouchDesigner and Houdini to create 3D animations. I focused particularly on materials and lighting, learning through numerous tutorials. In Houdini, rendering transparency and reflections takes a lot of time, so completing a single piece would often take a long time.

Saeko Ehara. Crystal Flowers, 2022

Flowers are also a common element in kirakira aesthetics that can be found in your work. What do you find most appealing about using flowers as an element in your compositions? Which flowers do you like to depict? Are they more connected to Japanese and Asian cultures (such as lotus or almond blossoms) or to Western tradition (roses, poppies, daisies)?

Flowers are a universal presence that can be enjoyed by people regardless of nationality or race, and that’s what I find so appealing about them. When choosing flower types, I focus on their symbolism and their relationship to the place of exhibition. Recently, as I often focus on everyday life as a theme, I’ve increasingly been incorporating flowers that bloom in familiar surroundings.

“I like flowers because they are a universal presence that can be enjoyed by people regardless of nationality or race.”

You often collaborate with musicians in VJ sessions. Since your artworks have the ability to transport viewers to a different world, how do you combine that immersive experience with the music? Do these artworks have a different pace or rhythm compared to those you exhibit in gallery or museum shows?

VJ sessions often last 20 to 40 minutes, allowing for a deeper viewing experience than static exhibitions. I usually research the musician’s music in advance and align my expression with their rhythm and worldview. I also take into account the venue size and screen shape when creating the visuals.

Saeko Ehara. Dreamy Creatures, 2022

Given that your work often depicts fantastic worlds and immersive scenes, have you developed VR or AR pieces? If so, how would you compare the experience on the screen with that of a VR headset?

I’m not currently creating VR or AR works. Personally, I prefer screen-based experiences that anyone can enjoy without needing a headset or installing apps.

“Platforms like Niio, which connect with the world, are wonderful and feel like a big step toward realizing my vision.”

You have expressed interest in art history when working with AI. What do you find appealing about the art of the past? Which art styles or artists are you most interested in? Apparently you work mainly with references from Western art, have you explored traditional Japanese art too?

Both 3D animation and AI are stimulating, but right now I find myself especially drawn to working with AI models. AI allows for some control, but its greatest appeal is the unpredictability of the outcomes. In the beginning, I created many works that re-generated Western and Japanese art through AI. Recently, I’ve become more interested in the idea of how past artists might express themselves using today’s tools. I’m also exploring how to train AI using public domain works to discover new forms of expression.

Saeko Ehara. Flower Garden, 2024

What would be the next step of “making the world full of kirakira”? Would you like to create more installation work, or live performances, or maybe widely distribute your work, with Niio or other platforms?

Platforms like Niio, which connect with the world, are wonderful and feel like a big step toward realizing my vision. I believe it will take time to fill the world with Kirakira, but I want to cherish each opportunity and build slowly. That way, little by little, I hope to fill the world with Kirakira.

Lines of Thought: painting across mediums

Niio Editorial

British artist Thomas Lisle has long explored the frontier where painting meets digital media, creating a compelling fusion of tradition and innovation. With a career spanning over four decades, his work seamlessly integrates analog techniques with immersive digital processes. Currently, Galeria Maior in Pollença is presenting Lines of Thought, a solo exhibition curated by Pau Waelder. This body of work is complemented by an artcast on Niio, offering audiences a deeper insight into Lisle’s hybrid practice of “time-based paintings” and dynamic compositions.

We spoke with the artist about his creative process, the interplay between digital and physical media, and how his works evolve across dimensions and time. This brief three-question interview offers readers a quick dive into Lisle’s work, which can be further explored in a longer interview and an essay by the artist, both published in Niio Editorial.

View of the exhibition “Lines of Thought” by Thomas Lisle at Galeria Maior in Pollença (Mallorca, Spain).

Your exhibition Lines of Thought showcases both physical and digital works. Can you tell us how these two forms are connected in your process?

In this series, the digital paintings came first. Using the 3D animation software, I painted a series of tubular shapes, similar to pencil lines but with volume. These I could edit, move around, and change in any way I wanted. When I was happy with these elements, I converted the tubular shapes into simulated liquids and set different parts of each of them to have different values of mass, viscosity, and so on.

The pencil lines thus became a liquid simulation (using complex mathematics developed by others). I turned the gravity to zero in most pieces but not all: in some of the pieces several paint strokes have gravity and others don’t. Then in some of the artworks I animated a brushstroke over time, moving across the virtual canvas and interacting with other paint elements. The main themes of this series of artworks are about dynamic compositions and forms, as well as contrasts of colour, forms, mass, and movement.

Thomas Lisle. Currents, 2025

The next step was the animation of the liquid paints: to do that I built complex invisible forces that push the liquids around. I spent a lot of time trying out different combinations of forces and the settings controlling the liquids, until I got the results I aimed for, that have a visual, painterly meaning to me. I think about these compositions in terms of relationships and abstractions that I think could make either a great painting and/or a good animation.

For the paintings I took specific moments of the animation where I felt that the composition, colour, and forms are the best and then I used that image as the basis for a painting. So all the process that I described above has also been carried out considering this last stage in which the animation can become an oil painting on canvas.

Thomas Lisle. Flotsam, 2025.

You describe these animations as “time-based paintings.” What makes this digital approach painterly in your view?

What makes them painterly is the visual language they inherit from traditional painting—color, composition, gesture—but reimagined in motion and time. Each animation is a dynamic abstraction, shaped by invisible forces I program to manipulate the virtual paint. I spend a lot of time adjusting these forces and liquid parameters to create meaningful visual relationships—whether it’s through tension, mass, or movement. These aren’t just technical effects; they’re part of a painterly exploration, extended into the temporal realm.

“In the digital 3D space, lines evolve; they can be manipulated in ways unimaginable even 20 years ago.”

What does the idea of a “line” mean in this body of work, especially given the title Lines of Thought?

The line is foundational here—both as a visual element and as a metaphor. Traditionally, lines have been the building blocks of drawings and paintings. In the digital 3D space, lines evolve; they can be manipulated in ways unimaginable even 20 years ago. In my process, lines are the genesis of everything: they become forms, masses, and ultimately, flowing simulations. Conceptually, the title Lines of Thought speaks to both this visual structure and the algorithmic logic behind digital creation—almost like thinking made visible.

Lines of Thought is on view at Galeria Maior, Pollença, throughout June 2025. A curated selection of Lisle’s digital works is also available on Niio as part of a special artcast accompanying the exhibition.

A purely visual experience. The art of Eisuke Ikeda

Niio Editorial

Born in Osaka in 1976 and trained in post-production editing after graduating from the University of Fine Arts, Eisuke Ikeda has developed a distinctive visual language that seamlessly weaves analog sensibility into digital precision. His works are marked by an intentional embrace of imperfection—subtle distortions, organic pulses, and delicate fractures that bring a surprising tactility to the virtual screen. Central to Ikeda’s practice is a deep trust in the viewer’s intuition. He eschews overt symbolism or narrative structure, focusing instead on the phenomenological act of seeing. Subtle distortions, organic fluctuations, and textural echoes mimic natural erosion and evoke the tactile essence of physical matter, despite being rendered entirely in the digital realm.

Niio has recently launched the solo artcast Eternity of the Ephemeral, which features five artworks that, more than just moving images, unfold like ambient states of consciousness. These are not works to be watched in the conventional sense—they are to be dwelled in, felt, and absorbed. Each composition becomes an experiential landscape where the viewer’s perception becomes the true medium. In the following interview, the artist elaborates on his creative process and the concepts that underlie his artistic practice.

Eisuke Ikeda. EXoC 2681257 | 2025 Remix |, 2025

You have worked as a post-production CGI specialist for film productions. How does this background influence or nurture your artistic production? What have you learned in terms of software usage and image production that you are now applying to your artistic projects?

When I worked in post-production, my duties ranged from assisting with television editing to creating CGI components and producing opening visuals for music events.

What impressed me most during that time were the veteran craftsmen at the Kyoto film studios. Cinematographers, editors and script supervisors—professionals who, in other careers, would already be retired—devoted themselves to finishing each project, working through the night without hesitation. Their approach to filmmaking was more than technical skill; it was a way of life. The blend of boldness, precision and pride they embodied remains vivid in my memory.

Those experiences still shape my practice today. Although my methods have evolved, the resolve to “communicate through moving images” and the quiet sincerity with which I face each work are values I inherited from them.

“The interweaving of nature with daily life and the presence of temples and shrines in Kyoto have formed my aesthetic foundation since childhood.”

My sensibility is also rooted in Kyoto’s environment. The interweaving of nature with daily life and the presence of temples and shrines have formed my aesthetic foundation since childhood. From art-school days to the present I have been drawn to contemporary art, Japanese Zen, Buddhist art and classical arts; the decorative and symbolic qualities of hanging scrolls, folding screens and esoteric Buddhist implements continue to influence me spiritually.

The software skills I acquired by self-study at university became my technical base. I entered the field just as digital tools were being introduced, and programs such as After Effects, Photoshop and non-linear editors proved indispensable in both commercial and personal work. Those skills still underpin my art today. More recently I have expanded my toolkit—again self-taught—to include TouchDesigner and Ableton Live.

Thus, beyond any single CGI technique, it is the mindset and sensibility cultivated in post-production, together with my exposure to diverse art forms, that define the core of my creative work.

Eisuke Ikeda. EXoC 2681257 | 2025 Remix |, 2025

Can you briefly describe the process of elaboration of your artworks? Despite being abstract compositions, what are the experiences, images, or ideas that trigger their creation?

I currently rely on TouchDesigner and Ableton Live to pursue abstractions in which sight and sound intertwine. Although I once produced 3-D character animation, I gradually became more attracted to abstraction—forms that leave interpretation to the viewer rather than imposing narrative or figuration. I am drawn to structures with no beginning or end, no fixed centre, in which spiritual resonance can reside.

My process is improvisational. Instead of following a strict concept, I trust “moments of visual delight.” As light, motion and colour shift, I adjust elements in real time, responding with my emotions and bodily sense—an approach akin to musical improvisation.

The five works uploaded to Niio focus on delicate particle movements, yet my style remains fluid. Depending on my state of mind I may move toward flat compositions, high contrast or rapid motion. In every case I seek to evoke pre-linguistic emotions or fragments of memory, rather than convey explicit meaning.

“I am drawn to structures with no beginning or end, no fixed centre, in which spiritual resonance can reside.”

In your artworks, you avoid any rigid interpretation or meaning. In fact, the title of each video is mostly a reference number, with no intention of providing any narrative. Yet the descriptions are quite poetic, with references to memory, silence, the soul, or eternity. How do you balance the purely abstract and rational with the more evocative and narrative aspects of your work?

Titles such as EXoC or abCnW are deliberately cryptic: abbreviations of words that interested me at the time. They preserve ambiguity and poetic space, encouraging open interpretation rather than prescribing it. 

Ultimately I want to offer a “purely visual experience” that quietly expands awareness. What I call a “tactile sensation beyond the screen” is this spiritual and sensory resonance—one that connects, for me, with the animistic quietude in traditional Japanese aesthetics.

“Ultimately I want to offer a purely visual experience that quietly expands awareness.”

Ephemerality is a key concept in your work, expressed in fleeting elements, bursts of light, and also darkness. Is the search for the expression of the ephemeral what led you to work with digital media? How do motion, light, and darkness play a role in your work?

Creating art has always been a digital act for me. Since my student days I have worked on a computer; I have never painted on canvas. Thus expression and digital media are inseparable in my practice.

I did not adopt digital tools because I sought ephemerality; rather, I have long explored how to express ephemerality within the digital environment I know so well.

That sense of impermanence appears in flickers of light, bleeding shadows and formless tremors that rise and vanish. These overlap with memory fragments and emotional echoes, permeating the viewer as a subtle perception of time and space.

Motion, light and darkness are indispensable to this. They remain understated—quivering softly inside the frame, leaving a quiet trace. Only digital media allow the fine-grained accumulation of change that produces the fragile texture I seek.

Eisuke Ikeda. EXoC 2681257 | 2025 Remix |, 2025

Each artwork in this series features a meditative soundtrack. How does music support the visual experience? Does it introduce a narrative, or convey a certain emotion?

For every piece in this series the soundtrack was composed after the visuals were completed. The music introduces no explicit narrative; its purpose is to support atmosphere and mood.

Sound and image function symbiotically: audio flows with the rhythm of light and movement. Rather than directing viewers toward set emotions, the restrained soundscape leaves room for personal reflection and sensory introspection.

“Only digital media allow the fine-grained accumulation of change that produces the fragile texture I seek.”

The use of Artificial Intelligence models is gaining widespread use in artistic creation. Are you interested in applying AI to your creative process in any way?

Advances in AI have opened a new perspective on my work. When OpenAI’s ChatGPT gained wide attention a few years ago, its potential struck me powerfully. For an artist rooted in digital expression, AI’s arrival echoed the shock photography once delivered to painting, prompting artists to reconsider their medium.

Many creators now collaborate with AI. I have begun tentative experiments in TouchDesigner, exploring AI-driven possibilities. My use is still preliminary, but I am gradually looking toward deeper integration—generating code and widening the scope of interaction.

Jinsil Lee: Opposites living together

Niio Editorial

Jinsil Lee is a visual artist based in Seoul, South Korea. She earned a BFA degree in 2019 from School of Visual Arts, New York City, where she initially developed her photography work. She later on moved to Seoul, where she continues her career as an artist while working as a content specialist at Tesla Korea. Her work has been featured on the Samsung US website and Samsung Mobile USA social channels, and she has also participated in group shows such as the Naver Z Metaverse Exhibition (2022), Pulse Art Fair in Miami (2019), and School of Visual Arts Mentor Show (2019).

On the occasion of her first solo artcast on Niio, Transcendence, we talked with Jinsil about her creative process and the way she transforms scenes captured in her daily environment into mesmerizing abstract compositions. 

Jinsil Lee. Dream of a summer night, 2019

You studied at the NY School of Visual Arts and currently live and work in Seoul as a visual artist and content specialist. Both New York and Seoul are vibrant cities, each with their own pace and culture. What has been more inspiring to you from your experience living and developing your career between the US and South Korea?

New York and Seoul are very similar and different cities. Both cities are full of their own charm, and both have been very inspiring to me in different ways. I grew up in Korea, so I’m more influenced by Korean culture in terms of the way I think and the language, but it was in the US where I really started to pursue art. I was able to explore art more freely in New York with its huge art scene, various art fairs, galleries, and artists, and this has greatly influenced my work today. Both cities have influenced me in different ways. Seoul has influenced me as a person, and New York has influenced my artistic work.

“I’ve lived in cities all my life, so I have a longing for nature.”

Your work is based on photography, yet it becomes a moving, abstract image. Can you explain to us your creative process? How does the transition from the captured image to the final composition come about?

I’ve been drawing since I was a kid. In my teenage years, I mostly painted in oils, and I loved the freedom to express whatever I imagined on the canvas. Then I started photography and applied my painting style to the medium of photography. I took a series of photographs and used tools like Photoshop to create short videos, and then I moved on to working with footage shot in video format.

Jinsil Lee. Sunset Town, 2018

Scenes from daily life and natural landscapes are sources of inspiration in your work. What are you most attracted to? Do you consider the scenes in front of you in terms of their aesthetics (colors, light, movement) or do you also consider their context, the meanings and stories that underlie the image you are capturing?

I’ve lived in cities all my life, so I have a longing for nature. I work and live in a big building in the city, but I question every day whether this environment is right for our bodies and minds, so when I’m close to nature, I feel an indescribable sense of awe. I think about this a lot, especially when I’m at the beach and I’m looking at the water moving like it’s breathing and the sunlight shining on it, and I realize that it’s so much like a human being, and I think about how long they must have traveled to get to where I am, and I think about how the moment that I’m in with them feels like a miracle, and it’s amazing. The visual beauty in front of me inspires me, but I think it’s probably the backstory that has a bigger impact on me.

Jinsil Lee. 20 18, 2018

Abstract art seeks the essence of things and at the same time removes the viewer from any reference to a specific time or space. What do you find most interesting about focusing on abstraction? What do you think that might be missing from the first-hand experience you get while capturing the original images?

I think there’s a lot of power in abstract art, and the reason I loved painting as a kid was that I was free to express my thoughts on a white canvas. I think abstract art, similar to the experience of painting, gives the audience a bigger room to run around in by removing the boundaries, and that’s the power of abstract art, that other people can see what I’ve imagined and they can develop their own imagination. That’s how we connect through art, and I think it’s very similar to nature, where everything is connected organically. So I try to make the forms as minimal as possible, and then I use the power of color to replace them, so that the audience doesn’t see them in their rawest state, but on the other hand, they see them in their most basic, unclothed form.  

”The power of abstract art is that other people can see what I’ve imagined and they can develop their own imagination.”

Water, oceans, fluids, are common elements in your work. This is often combined with symmetrical structures, creating a certain tension between order and chaos, staticity and fluidity. What do you find most interesting about this tension between opposites? Could there be one without the other?

I love the book White by Hara Kenya, and there’s a quote in it that goes something like this. “The black color of type is only truly valuable when it is paired with the white it is based on.” I believe that two opposites are more valuable when they coexist, like you can only feel joy when there is sadness, and that’s why I like to play with this idea. In fact, my biggest inspiration is nature, but capturing it as a pixel-based digital photograph and editing it through digital tools, I think this process is very similar to human life. There are quiet people and there are loud people, there are people like me who are good at drawing but not so good at talking, and there are people who are better at expressing themselves through words than through drawings. I think my artistic process is a lot like our lives, where we have these opposites living together.  

Jinsil Lee. 4AM, 2019

While your compositions are abstract and rationally geometric, the titles of your artworks suggest a narrative, which in some cases is expressed with words, as in These Foolish Things. Can you elaborate on the use of narrative in your work?

One of the most important things in my life is music. I feel unimaginable happiness from a favorite song and can be immersed in that emotional state for long periods of time. So when I start listening to a song, I usually memorize the lyrics from start to finish, and then I take those lyrics and rearrange them or turn the words into something that expresses my thoughts and use them in my artwork. I think it’s interesting that in this process, I’ll be thinking about the song while looking at my work, but I’m taking the audience into a world that I’ve “recreated”.  

“My artistic process is a lot like our lives, where we have these opposites living together”

Sound and music also play a role in your work, which is sometimes silent, and sometimes features a music score or the sounds of the environment you recorded. Can you tell us a bit more about the connection between images and sound, and what leads you to choose whether the piece will be silent, with music, or ambient noise?

I often meditate, and sometimes music helps me to focus, and sometimes I’m able to focus more deeply when there is no sound at all. When I work on my art, I feel similar to when I meditate, sometimes I work with music and sometimes I work in a silent environment. For each piece, I choose sound to support the audience’s visual experience, and sometimes I choose silence so that the audience can focus on the visual experience alone.

Jinsil Lee. In Your Orbit, 2019

The growing influence of AI in the visual arts offers artists the possibility to work with source material that doesn’t exist, but is created by a prompt. Are you interested in incorporating this technology into your work, for instance to start with an AI-generated video and then turn it into an abstract composition, or else use real footage and transform it with the aid of AI tools?

100%. I consider my work to be a 3 way collaboration between nature, myself and digital technology. I am quite interested in how digital cameras capture and read moments. For example, the actual color I remember is often not the same as the color the digital camera reproduces, but I find the process and how it works fascinating, so I use it as it was captured. In this context, the idea of AI generating an image based on the data it has stored over the years, with prompts from me, is very interesting.

“I want to create a work of art in which I and the AI imagine a universe that I can’t actually photograph.”

It’s a vague idea, but I want to create a work of art in which I and the AI imagine a universe that I can’t actually photograph. If so, I’m very excited to see where that AI’s data comes from and how amazing it would be to see how it came to meet me.