Bio

Harvey Rayner English algorithmic artist (b. 1975). Lives and works in Upstate NY, USA.

Rayner uses a strictly code-based practice to explore new forms of mark-making, where the subtlety and warmth of pre-digital media is reconstructed and synthesized into a fresh methodology and visual dynamic. With the unlikely building blocks of mathematics and vector graphics, Rayner builds rich and intricate organic textures that resolve into painterly gestures and rhythmic geometric structures. Color in these works is treated like an elemental force, algorithmically orchestrated and modulated to build space and momentum.

Rayner insists algorithmic art is a direct craft, even a modern extension of drawing and painting that can be explored with expressionistic intent. Rayner uses randomness as a powerful tool to explore the possibility space contained within carefully crafted parameters. The resulting algorithms are essentially art making machines capable of creating an infinite number of unique artworks. This process however does not relinquish authorship to an opaque system. This is not artificial intelligence, with a black box mediating between intention and outcome.

Drawing on foundational ideas within the art-historical canon and reinterpreting them through algorithmically authentic methods - Rayner’s work is rooted in 20th Century abstract picture making, yet true to an art form that was virtually unimaginable only a decade ago. Rayner’s work blurs the boundary between human and machine made; between past and future, but also between artist and collector. In many works Rayner invites collectors to become a co-creator in the final algorithmic process by incorporating their interaction data or curatorial input into the structure of the final collections.