Inktober

Iconic Artworks in the Era of AI

Midjourney | Adobe Photoshop

Generative AI

Prompt Meets Painter.

AI Meets Imagination.

In this experimental Inktober 2023 project, I challenged myself to explore the intersection of human creativity and AI imagination. Using image-generation tools like MidJourney, I reimagined how iconic artists from the past might interpret today's ideas—each inspired by a single-word prompt from the official Inktober list.


This is not just a visual study, but a philosophical question: If Van Gogh had access to MidJourney, what would his dreams look like? If Ravi Varma painted today, how would he depict “golden” in pixels rather than oil?

Reflections

This project was an eye-opener into the future of visual arts—where prompts become palettes and artists become curators of AI hallucinations. It made me question the role of the artist in an AI-enhanced future  Is it the brush, or the idea that holds more weight?



I don’t see AI as a replacement. It’s a mirror—reflecting our ideas, our references, and biases—just faster, stranger, and infinitely remixable.


Concept & Approach

Inktober Prompts as the Starting Point

I selected 9 prompts from Inktober 2023: Toad, Bounce, Dodge, Dream, Drip, Golden, Map, Path, Spiders.

Artist Pairing

Each prompt was paired with a master artist whose style, medium, or cultural philosophy aligned with the word. This pairing helped guide the visual tone and texture of the AI generations.

Tool Used


  • MidJourney

  • Prompt engineering with iterative refinements

  • Final compositions curated using Adobe Photoshop

Exploratory Questions driving the project


  • How does the essence of a prompt change when filtered through the lens of a historic artist?

  • Can AI mimic style, or does it reinterpret it entirely?

  • What does authorship mean when human prompts and machine patterns collide?

Thank You For Watching 🤙