MELBOURNE.- One of Melbourne’s most celebrated artists, Sam Leach’s work is informed by the canon of art history, science, and philosophy, often referencing Dutch paintings of the 17th century as well as elements of formalist paintings from the 1960s and 70s. His focus is on the intersections between science and nature, combining the poles of the metaphorical and the empirical, the analogous and the objective, in an ongoing investigation of the relationship between humans, machines and animals.

Leach’s most recent bodies of work – developed over the past five years, since 2018, incorporate machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), fusing the tropes and gestures of paintings with the mechanics and gaze of the future. In Emotion Harvest, opening at Sullivan+Strumpf Melbourne Thursday September 14, he brings together a collection of paintings and interactive artworks in an exploration of AI and emotions.

This major exhibition marks Leach’s first Melbourne solo exhibition since 2009, making it a landmark show in a career spanning more than 20 years, during which he has been awarded some of Australia’s most highly coveted awards, including both the Archibald Prize for portraiture and the Wynne Prize for landscape painting.

Leach was born and grew up in Adelaide, where he completed a Bachelor of Economics, graduating from Adelaide University in 1993, and worked for many years in the Australian Tax Office before dedicating himself to art full time.

He moved to Melbourne in the early 2000s, completing first a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) in 2003, followed by an Honours Fine Art (Painting) in 2004, a Master of Arts (Fine Arts) in 2005, and a PhD (Fine Art) in 2017. Fascinated by the impact of art and science on the evolution of culture and society over the centuries, his work is informed by a strong theoretical background, combined with a fascination with the future.

Emotion Harvest is an extension of Leach’s ongoing investigation into the relationship between AI and art, and how art can be used to investigate the impact of AI on contemporary culture.

The exhibition includes works that incorporate AI in a variety of forms, from primitive models such as Generative Adversarial Networks to linear regression models and complex facial recognition, illustrating how these rudimentary and advanced technologies interact with our emotional landscape.

The show also makes historical connections, referencing early automation instances such as de Vaucanson's Canard Digérateur, or Digesting Duck, unveiled in France on 30 May 1764. The size of a living duck, cased in gold-plated copper, the Canard Digérateur could quack, muddle water with its bill, and appeared capable of drinking water, eating kernels of grain, metabolising the food and defecating. Through such historical perspective Leach hopes to historically contextualise the evolution of AI, considering humanities ongoing and evolving relationship with technology.

A series of Leach’s stunning oil paintings are the product of an ongoing painting-led analysis of machine learning (ML): an iterative process between artist and machine, in which Leach manipulates the machine’s dataset and algorithm; feeding it with photographs of his own artworks, and other images he has found, curious to see how this information will be processed.

Over time the algorithm will reduce the dataset to produce a single proposed heavily-pixelated “image” – an amalgamation of the original dataset he suppled, ratified by hundreds of thousands of instances of analysis, which Leach then draws and paints using traditional oil painting methodologies.

Alongside the painting Leach will present his latest interactive sculptures, designed not only to employ AI technology, but also to question its authenticity and autonomy. For example, at his most recent Sydney exhibition in 2022, Leach introduced audiences to an interactive AI which utilised machine learning object detection to analyse if its viewer was a polar bear, or not. A fun and interactive piece, the work also spoke to the meta-crises of the collapse of the environment, power imbalance and control, and the broad influence of AI on many aspects of society.

A key theme of Emotion Harvest, Leach says, is the exploration of AI's dual nature. “On one hand, AI is defined by objective calculations, while on the other, it's capable of replicating human emotional nuances. It is based on probability and prediction, but capable of manipulating our feelings and actions to achieve goals which align with the aims of the large corporations who control the most powerful AI models.”

“Emotion Harvest intends to kindle dialogue on our relationship with technology, with a focus on the emotional aspect,” he continues. “Humans understand images as complex, multi-layered, and packed with emotional resonances. ML by contrast, does not take any of this into account, but it does suggest aesthetic connections and parallels in images.”

"In recent years, I've been training ML models with image datasets, allowing them to suggest pixel arrangements based on probability, not judgement. The question that emerges is whether this approach will uncover our inherent prejudices or simply reinforce them."” he concludes.

Sam Leach’s works are informed by the canon of art history, science, and philosophy. He combines the poles of the metaphorical and the empirical, the analogous and the objective, in an ongoing investigation of the relationship between humans, machines and animals. His most recent bodies of work incorporate machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) fusing the tropes and gestures of paintings with the mechanics and gaze of the future.

With a distanced, scientific approach, he draws connections between data visualisation techniques, semiotics, and formalist abstraction that results in a kind of reductive aesthetics. While the delicate interplay between formalist figuration and modernist abstraction in his paintings operates on one level to distance the viewer – to encourage them to look objectively at the subjects – on another level each animal depicted has a symbolic currency that resonates with the audience on a personal level.
The paintings extend their focus from animal life to the spectrum of all life itself, encouraging the viewer to contemplate their role as living creatures on this shared earth.

In 2010, Leach won both Wynne and Archibald Prizes at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and he was a finalist for the Royal Bank of Scotland Emerging Artist Award in 2009.

His work has been extensively exhibited nationally and internationally.

Sullivan + Strumpf
Sam Leach: Emotion Harvest
September 14th, 2023 - October 21st, 2023