Nathan Boey

Throughout my life, I have explored various artistic mediums, from childhood drawings to adolescent forays into design, sculpture, and video. However, it is in the realm of still and moving images that I have dedicated the past two decades of my creative journey.

“Unmoored” seeks to challenge viewers by presenting familiar objects, locations, and tones in unexpected pairings. Drawing upon mundane characters, objects, and settings inspired by personal memories and life experiences, the work displaces these elements from their usual contexts, and challenges viewers to venture beyond the surfaces of the images to find new associations and deeper understandings.

The creation of each image in “Unmoored” entailed equal measures of memory, imagination, and emotion. Each studio session commenced with compiling a list of people (their professions, ages, and attire), settings/locations (specific eras and times of day), and other elements (inanimate objects, animals, etc.), all drawn from fragments within the artist’s memory.

Armed with a list containing approximately ten ideas from each category, I would begin piecing them together, considering both their visual qualities and the emotions they stirred within. Whenever a moment struck me with resonance, I would delve into Midjourney and commence the process of prompting. On average, it would take 40 to 100 iterations to unearth something that resonated profoundly with my vision. And in pursuit of a purity in AI art making, I refrained from retouching any of the outputs beyond upscaling the completed works.

Ultimately, “Unmoored” reflects on the intoxicating allure of those moments when inspiration struck—a sensation akin to a drug that has captivated me since my youth. This feeling, characterized by the stimulation of entirely new neural pathways within the brain, serves as the driving force behind my creative pursuits. Striving to evoke this electrifying sensation, I endeavor to forge unexplored realms of perception and experience through my work.