"The Mandelbrot Set" Painting

Robert Szczerbowski (b. 1959) is a Polish interdisciplinary artist. In his works, which comprise paintings, objects, installations, and videos, he builds coherent, autonomous narrative worlds that transcend the boundaries of individual media. Using the aesthetics and language of advanced technologies, he analyzes their impact on the sphere of internal experience and contemporary models of perception. Technology is not merely a tool, but also a subject of critical reflection and an artistic material. His works reveal the complex relationship between humans and technology, raising questions about the boundaries of subjectivity and consciousness in today's world. In his paintings, Szczerbowski references fractal geometry and biometric facial recognition systems. In his objects and installations, he employs programming languages, transforming their specialized codes into carriers of cultural and symbolic meaning. The exhibition titled "I AM AI" (2026) presents iconic objects where sacret texts meet machine code and the digital world of AI. Szczerbowski blurring lines between organic and digital, real and simulation. Questioning identity and transcendence. The exhibition "I AM AI" does not feature works generated using artificial intelligence. In the series of portraits titled ID (Identity) from 2019-20, Robert Szczerbowski references, ubiquitous facial recognition technology. He expands on the motif of the pixelated image, which first appeared in his Self-Portrait from 2002. The artist broadly explores the topic of identity across various social media. Fractal paintings (2000-2003) originated at the intersection of painting and technology to explore virtual reality, a new dimension in the digital age. Discovering the potential of fractal geometry for art, Szczerbowski draws these virtual structures into the real world and materializes them as painterly subjects. He is inspired by the similarity of forms created as a result of purely mathematical operations and using a machine (but not AI) to astonishing motifs, often psychedelic, known from the sphere of human imagination, which have previously manifested themselves in, among others, art and religion. The artist calls his works "cybercanvases" and adds: "A machine, calculating a fractal, thinks digitally. A human, painting a fractal, thinks analogue. In this process takes part a subjective factor related to an individual gesture, a sense of color, an error, etc."