In the exhibition "Distancing Effect" visual artist Peter Hosfeld presents a collection of oil paintings that expands on his themes of post-humanist romanticism.

The title comes from German playwright Berthold Brecht's tactic of de-familiarization in art, seeking to disrupt the audience's penchant for identifying with the subject and so be forced to engage directly with the ideas present.

Recreating ai generated images in oil paint aims to confront the viewer with questions about creativity, originality and even humanity in the age of machine learning. Besides highlighting the inhuman nature of Artificial Intelligence's seduction, the paintings show an influence of Romanticism, echoing the preoccupations of that era’s artists, as they were confronted with massive technological upheaval and the altering of the natural world with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Hosfeld posits that we’re in a similar existential spot, entering the future with the same blend of awe and foreboding.

Peter Hosfeld lives and works in Miami since 2010. Born in Spain, he grew up in Norway, studied painting inVenezuela, and received a BFA from SAIC in 1998. After working in the video game industry in L.A. for a decade, Hosfeld began his studio practice after moving to Miami in 2009, working on themes of entropy, deep time and post-humanism.