Irfan Mir's Portfolio

Method Making

Preview

Preview of pieces made in method process. Story, meanings, and more available in Details section

Summary

A deep dive into hi-compassion and art, to later exercise design with empathy, I studied and sought to paint in a process inspired by method acting

Description & Timeline

  1. This section briefly sheds insight on my extensive process of self-improvement and learning ability—quickly learning how to paint; not to be pursued as a profession, but as a form of introspection and growth
  2. In a ~12-month chapter where I revolutionized my wellness and self-development, I sought to paint with compassion as a form of expression and message delivery
  3. I aimed for this to make me further compassionate and empathetic to best deliver Human-Centered experiences
  4. Thoroughly studied, mainly, Monet and van Gogh including learning, and writing poetry in, French and Dutch to express in Impressionist and Post-Impressionist styles
  5. Won a local competition for my unqiue work with AI and creativity and earned a spot in a gallery and auction
  6. View the Front-End experiments for the painting Bliss at the end of the Details
  7. In the last section of Details, Originals—view pieces made with AI

Method making is a process I experimented with inspired by method acting—to truly create as an artist or in a style. I aimed to put myself in the mood, attitude, and personality of Claude Monet and Impressionism. I researched his life, read quotes; of his, reports/news/cultural climate, and interviews about him at the time; and since, read essays on his work, listened to the music of the time for example. All allowing me, to hopefully, be compassionate with the artist in mind's style, myself, my feelings, and my audience and expressing that compassion in my own style. I modeled this technique after that of a neural network, which is trained on data and that expresses output inspired by that input.

Compassion, truly, is a mutual experience.

"For me, the subject is of secondary importance: I want to convey what is alive between me and the subject." - Claude Monet

"It is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done." - Vincent van Gogh

The above, by Monet, is not at all meant to belittle the user, the exact opposite, through compassion and emphasis of the relationship between the people involved, we can create better technology. I chose the above, by van Gogh, because compassion is a pure form of love for which things done in are done with care, in respect, and well. Finding strength in belief in the user, the audience and what is best for them and what is viable and best for the business as one. That once this is feasible and with compassion, great experiences will come. Another important point, which I believe in, from this quote is the ability for a team, a company, an organization to grow with diversity. That when practicing self and outward compassion, as I aimed to do in painting these pieces and generally in work and everyday life, but with ourselves and within ourselves we'll grow through inclusion, building on each other's strengths. Through learning, reflecting; not reacting, and being the best we can be, the best team we can be, the best company we can be, and; at last, the best society we can be through diversity and inclusion of people, experience, talents, and perspectives.

While it may be nice or aesthetically pleasing that I was able to repaint or paint in Impressionist and Post-Impressionist styles, this was an exercise in compassion. A practice and an ability I've fashioned that I'd like to continue with a great organization. To emphasize the users and the organization, the humans, and to vividly express the thread, the connection between experience and person. I believe through that, we'll be able to create wholesome, viable, accessible experiences for all people.
One must be compassionate inwards and outwards in honest creativity, taking risks, learning from mistakes, and growing. I practiced repainting a few of my favorite Monet pieces with AI and by hand to learn to paint in the Impressionist style and learn to embrace imperfection and Wabi Sabi. Through this, I believe I was able to create these pieces that carry the Feng Shui Monet’s work often did with elements of my own style and character.

A painting of a coastal cityscape made with the method making process
This piece, titled “Vous valez tout le foutu groupe ensemble”, is the second in a series Monet never started where he documented the cityscape of an coastal town near the southern France/Italy border. The title is my attempt to express the quote (in French), “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together” from The Great Gatsby, my favorite novel.
A painting of a windmills and tulips in Holland/The Netherlands made with the method making process
"painting"/hope
This second piece also made in the method making process was done with a Monet landscape, repainted by hand, but a more uplifting sky to cause joy, poise, tranquility, and positive spirits also painted in Monet's style. In fact, the reason I did this second piece was to make someone's day a little brighter because that's the best way I know how to also make my day brighter.
There are two paintings in this image one of yellow and black irises with a yellow background and white roses in front of a striped green and white background. An evolution on my efforts to express a message with flowers, this of white roses entangled with green stems and leaves, is called 'the proportioned soul.' This seeks to express the message of purity and innocence, as aligned with white roses, representing the soul entangled with the green—representing life and the turmoils, temptations, and triumphs therein.
An evolution on my efforts to express a message with flowers, this of white roses entangled with green stems and leaves, I call "the proportioned soul." This seeks to express the message of purity and innocence, as aligned with white roses, representing the soul entangled with the green—representing life and the turmoils, temptations, and triumphs therein.
This painting feature white roses in a green vase in front of a light green background and a gray-ish white floor. An extension of painting flowers in the Post-Impressionist style to express a message, 'tender is the heart;' painted by hand and a background made with AI, seek to extend on the purity and innocent love embodied by the white rose to represent the healing and unity, which needs to happen, and may more likely happen with a soft heart—love and empathy for our fellow humans.
"tender is the heart"
An extension of painting flowers in the Post-Impressionist style to express a message, "tender is the heart;" painted by hand and a background made with AI building on one of my first pieces, which is of red opium poppies. Opium poppies do not typically blossom red and red poppies are associated with those lost at war. By fusing the red poppy with the opium poppy, I sought to express remembrance, care, and loss for those lost in the opioid epidemic, which has taken a toll similar to that of a war. This piece however seeks to extend on the purity and innocent love embodied by the white rose to represent the healing and unity, which needs to happen, and may more likely happen with a soft heart—love, empathy, understanding, and welcoming for our fellow humans.
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A scene of a green footbridge over a water lilly pond. I'm not sure if much needs to be said on this piece. I was challenged to repaint a famous scene and bring it to life through motion and sound design. I chose this piece to represent, as I hope this portfolio makes way for, a bridge to a bright future.
I'm not sure if much needs to be said on this piece. I was challenged to repaint a famous scene and bring it to life (view the motion and sound design in the motion design page of this portfolio) through motion and sound design. I chose this piece to represent, as I hope this portfolio makes way for, a bridge to a bright future.
Starry Night over the Rhone painted according to van Gogh's description. Twinkling stars; pink and green, particularly the Big Dipper constellation, in a dark aquamarine sky over mauve land with blue and purple buildings lit with yellow lamps reflecting russet-gold and green-bronze into a royal blue body of water.
"authentic"
Throughout this process, I developed deep empathy for some of my favorite visual artists and now beyond finding the pieces aesthetically pleasing, I understand the significance, meaning, and purpose of these pieces. I always aim to have meaning and purpose in my work and will further do so. I sought to reinterpret these pieces in the method making process except with this, Starry Night over the Rhone, I aimed to do the opposite to restore it to van Gogh's interpretation or his description of the painting in a letter to his brother Theo in late September 1888. In this correspondence, he detailed the painting with green and pink stars, an aquamarine sky over mauve land and blue and purple buildings lit with bright yellow lamps, new to Arles at the time, reflecting russet-gold to green-bronze in a royal blue Rhone, a river in France/Europe. However as it appears, to my eyes and aiming to not make assumptions, it is saturated with shades of yellow over dark blues. I aimed to keep this, to some degree, while using the colors in the description as colors were critical to van Gogh's work and understanding of the world and some have even said, as discovered in my research, he may have had a subconscious predisposition to yellow due to a, then epilepsy, medication he was taking. I chose to display these two, of a series of a few paintings of the Starry Night over the Rhone scene, one pays more attention to the original painting's yellow hues and the other to the description described earlier with its corresponding colors.
An above the horizon view of blossoming peach trees, fenced off, with houses in a plain in Arles, France with mountains in the background and a cloudy sky with a sun peeking through the clouds. This painting of Peach Trees in Blossom (after van Gogh) features an extension of the message and an addition of a modern, personal touch. Paired with my Sonnet 45, the painting documents the French countryside and mountains bearing some similarities to Japanese art and landscapes, which; as written in a letter to Theo, made Vincent happy and cheerful. My understanding of the message of this piece is to bring furition to dreams, merging beautiful nature with rigid human dwellings, what is wanted and needed with what is desired/sought after and what familiar/current. In this conclusion of the method making process, I seek to after illustrating the bridge to the future, in the earlier painting, set the scene for a new opportunity to come.
"caution wet paint do touch"
This painting of Peach Trees in Blossom (after van Gogh) features an extension of the message and an addition of a modern, personal touch. Paired with my Sonnet 45, the painting documents the French countryside and mountains bearing some similarities to Japanese art and landscapes, which; as written in a letter to Theo, made Vincent happy and cheerful. My understanding of the message of this piece is to bring furition to dreams, merging beautiful nature with rigid human dwellings, what is needed, what is dreamed/sought after and what is familiar/current. In this conclusion of the method making process, I seek to after illustrating the bridge to the future, in the earlier painting, set the scene for a new opportunity to come.
A yellow house at night busy with lights bursting through windows and people in the street and establishments nearby. A night-time version of van Gogh's The Street/The Yellow House.
Building on van Gogh's love for color and the night sky now painted in more accordance to his written description, I painted a night time version of The Street/The Yellow House hoping to signify the collaboration and activity, the hustle, bustle, and grind of a great team, of which I will be a part of, at work in a home designated to do good, thoughtful, meaningful, purposeful work. Reminiscing of van Gogh's idea for the yellow house when and why he rented it, but rather than likeminded folk working similarly, a team that grows through its inclusion and diversity and building with compassion on its members' strengths to create great experiences.
A plain with rolling hills and a small house on the side under an arbitrarily colored night sky of red, green, and yellow stars over a black and purple sky.
Meant to capture arbitrary color and thick paint at its best as well as the contrasts with land and sky and the idea of being down to earth yet moving forward, this piece is inspired by and contains significant meaning that can't all be discussed now. But in short, this painting represents finding one's self in peace rather than getting lost in expression. Where some of the earlier pieces and most definitely Impressionist pieces in general are meant to capture changing light and movement in an ordinary environment, this is meant to capture changing light and movement in the extraordinary soul. A story of progress, passion, patience, and perseverance. Ideated on the first night of Ramadan 1440 and painted on the first day, this seeks to express contrast yet peace in the new moon fresh night sky then vivid with abstract scattered stars over a thick calm landscape and the blessings, relief, and opportunities to come. From getting lost in a release crowded by emotion to being found in authenticity, compassion, humility, firmness, fitness, and wellness. May we all go on such journeys and find ourselves in progress and becoming continually better versions of ourselves!
Presenting bliss.

Originals

I once thought of a description of my art as time-traveling that extended Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings into series and painted my own series inspired by them.

Following Monet’s concept of:

Whoever claims to have finished a canvas is terribly arrogant

While I had some original work and many original reinterpretations, I had the confidence to move on to original work. Inspired by van Gogh’s The Starry Night as a cloudscape, I came up with the genre of an astroscape and painted the following pieces—one Post-Impressionist and the other the same, but in a Pointillist style.

a water lily pond reflecting nebulae, stars, and cosmic gases in an Impressionist style with collections of stars reflected through water lilies.
a water lily pond reflecting nebulae, stars, and cosmic gases in an Impressionist style with collections of stars reflected through water lilies
rose arches and green foliage over a clear body of water reflecting and under a cosmic night sky.
rose arches and green foliage over a clear body of water reflecting and under a cosmic night sky

In the summer of 2019, I experimented with Pointillism and then Cubism only to fuse the two into something I called Factionism, which was difficult and resulted in work I was not wholly satisfied with.

In August, I moved onto what I believe is Post-Expressionism, me being so bold, extending abstract expressionism into a style I call “Seum.” Fortune favors the bold!

While visiting Maui, I turned to painting as a form of self-compassion and relief. In an effort to document beautiful scenes I experienced on the island, here are two originals in the Seum style.

an abstract documentation of Maui's upcountry afer dark or Haleakala lit up at night resembling and glimmering like a skyline.
Maui's upcountry afer dark or Haleakala lit up at night resembling and glimmering like a skyline—ever so riveting I was disheartened I couldn't take a picture, but then poured into this abstract original
an abstract piece inspired by surfers surfing under a purple sunset at Lahaina harbor.
surfing under a purple sunset at Lahaina harbor—engrossing and enveloping in its beauty to say the least. I never thought I would see a purple sunset, I didn't know they existed and purple is my favorite color. And while shooting this scene is probably the best photo I have taken with my phone to date, I needed to contain it in this painting, for myself, which I began on the flight back and finished a few weeks later

Building on this further as when I originally started, I began using Artificial Intelligence to create what I call “spill paintings,” which took a painting and simulated as if it has been affected or it itself was spilled—inspired by an East-Asian ink style—Japonism was another movement I experimented with. It proved difficult to create the right piece that AI would reinterpret as an elegant spill and often the best pieces came out accidentally rather than intentionally. I’ll refrain from stating the names of the paintings as they are often abstract and long in nature

aa spill painting of a partly cloudy sky.
a spill painting of a partly cloudy sky
diffusion of purple cream into coffee black
diffusion of purple cream into coffee black
inspired by Expressionist poles pieces, a piece erupting with the flames of turmoil, troubles, and uneasiness.
inspired by Expressionist poles pieces, a piece erupting with the flames of turmoil, troubles, and uneasiness
lastly, a wholly abstract piece unrepresentative of anything
lastly, a wholly abstract piece

Front-end experiments

Rather than accompany this piece with sound and motion as some of the earlier pieces, I aimed to put my ability for Front-End development to use and recreate an experiment I saw using three.js to create layers that tilt through drag on mobile or desktop; or additionally, through tilt on mobile.View the bliss immersive experiment

With a rough view from inside the painting: View the bliss panoramic experiment