The artist at work in her studio

“Through the expressive beauty of paint, my artwork highlights the potential for nature and technology to work together in synergy towards a sustainable future.”

— Colleen Hoffenbacker

I create floral paintings that envision a fertile, fantastical garden and reflect the beauty, transformative power, and diversity of the natural world. The ethos and spirit of imagination that emerged in the Renaissance holds great significance in my classical oil painting technique. My floral compositions reflect on the early modern era's admiration of nature's visual order and the potential of our contemporary machine learning era to reveal new perspectives. Like early oil painters who studied botanical forms and structures, I am fascinated by the complex natural patterns found in flowers and plant life.

My paintings fuse traditional observational methods with modern technology's capacity for seeing the natural world anew. I aim to bridge the past reverence for nature with our current exploration of its unseen facets through AI. Specifically, AI can detect intricate patterns within organic forms unperceivable to humans alone. By thoughtfully incorporating these machine-generated visions into my floral art, I hope to expand the boundaries of creative expression. My goal is to align these emerging technological capabilities with the core human values that have long inspired appreciation and awe of the natural world. I am inspired by the timeless vision of human creativity flourishing in tandem with discovery through new tools. By fusing technology with patient observation, I hope to participate at the leading edge of this new era, where discovery and creation give rise to something novel, meaningful, and profoundly beautiful.