Chapter I
Von Wolfe
Interview about authorship, AI, and the philosophical reconstruction of image-making.
The Architecture of Echoes
Interview by Anna Somova //
There is a particular gravity to Von Wolfe’s work — an orchestration of image, symbol, and material that resists immediacy. With a philosophical lens and an instinct for structural recomposition, he treats visual culture not as reference but as raw architecture.
In this interview, he unfolds the deeper logic of his practice — authorship, distortion, machine-generated memory — and the construction of a post-canonical image.
Photography by Nick Knight
ARTWORK 「Steel Saint 」, Von Wolfe.
Digital diffusion model with crafted iterations in post-production.
Courtesy of the artist.
ARTWORK 「Pearls of the Desert 」, Von Wolfe.
Oil on Canvas.
Courtesy of the artist.
: Your art has been described as a “post-historic” practice that creates dialogues between eras. When you stand before a blank canvas, about to engage with a masterwork of the past, how do you choose which voices from art history to 'invite' into the conversation?
When I first began the “School of Night” series seven years ago, my approach was rooted in what I would now describe as a more direct engagement with art historical imagery. Back then, I found it compelling to draw upon the visual language of artists like Rembrandt—not to replicate, but to enter into a kind of imaginative dialogue. The inclusion of deep-sea creatures and alchemical symbols in that series was less a deliberate narrative and more a kind of intuitive collision, a fusion born out of what I now understand as an early iteration of Cultural Quantumism. These juxtapositions weren't meant to decode the past but to create a space where time folded into itself, inviting the viewer into a speculative mythology of human consciousness and the unknown.
Today, my process has transformed. I no longer reference masterworks directly, and I haven't for several years. Instead, I work from original compositions generated through a rigorous interplay between AI and traditional painting methods. The decision to move away from direct quotation was philosophical - an embrace of originality that nonetheless acknowledges its heritage through subtle stylistic resonance. While “School of Night” remains an important chapter in my development, my current work seeks to construct entirely new mythologies that reflect the complexity of our digital and human entanglements.
The narrative, if there is one, arises not from an intent to "fuse" symbols but from allowing multiple eras, styles, and psychic registers to coexist within a single pictorial space. In this way, the canon becomes less of a reference point and more of an echo chamber—one that informs, but no longer dictates, the aesthetic decisions I make.
: In your 2011 exhibition “I Have an Excellent Idea…Let’s Change the Subject,” you evoked Derrida’s notion that “death of the author does not mean death of responsibility.” What is your sense of ownership and responsibility over the narratives that emerge from your recombined imagery?
When I created “I Have an Excellent Idea…Let’s Change the Subject,” my interest lay in interrogating the authority of the image, and by extension, the author. At that time, I was engaged with Derrida’s notion that the “death of the author does not mean death of responsibility”—a premise that allowed me to explore the ethical ambiguity and liberating potential of recombination. My role then could be likened to that of a storyteller—a kind of bricoleur weaving a tapestry from salvaged icons, reshaping them into a new narrative that questioned its own origins.
But over time, my position has shifted. Today, I feel less like a storyteller and more like an architect—not merely reassembling fragments of the past, but constructing entirely new visual worlds. While the specters of historical styles still linger in my art, I now work predominantly with original content generated through a synthesis of AI and traditional technique. This evolution in process brings with it a deeper sense of authorship, not in the possessive sense, but in the philosophical one: authorship as accountability, as the ethical stewardship of meaning.
My responsibility lies not in preserving the narratives of the past, but in acknowledging how those narratives have shaped the visual language I now speak fluently, even as I strive to transcend it. I aim to build structures that are both haunted and newly inhabited—spaces where viewers can encounter echoes of history refracted through contemporary concerns. Authorship, in this context, becomes an act of critical architecture: designing visual environments that invite, unsettle, and ask more questions than they answer.
: You have seamlessly brought figures like Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, and even Pokémon into fine art contexts. What is the fascination for you with these mythic and pop-culture characters?
In the earlier phases of my practice, incorporating figures like Snow White, Alice, or even Pokémon was not merely an exercise in pop-cultural collage—it was a deliberate strategy. These characters functioned as instantly recognizable archetypes, modern-day hieroglyphs embedded with collective meaning. By placing them in incongruous or uncanny scenarios, I was probing the elasticity of symbolism—how the same icon can mutate across contexts, from innocence to seduction, from fantasy to critique. Snow White, for instance, was never just a princess; she became a cipher for innocence under siege, a stand-in for the commodification of purity, or even a reflection of the audience’s own cultural nostalgia. These characters allowed me to engage with a visual language that viewers already carried inside them. They became vessels through which I could question authorship, identity, and the porous boundaries between high culture and mass entertainment.
So whether playful, autobiographical, or subversive, these figures were never mere decoration. They were—and remain—gateways into deeper conversations about perception, projection, and the mythologies we collectively build.
ARTWORK 「THE STILL POINT .」, Von Wolfe.
Oil on Canvas
ARTWORK 「SHADOW-BAN 」, Von Wolfe.
: Your “Processions of Orpheus” show in Moscow was striking for how it married Picasso’s forms with Russian avant-garde aesthetics, creating what was called a “harmonious marriage between East and West”. What inspired you to explore that particular cultural fusion? Was it influenced by the Moscow setting, or perhaps by current dialogues about globalization in art?
Processions of Orpheus emerged at a moment when I was deeply interested in the tensions—and possibilities—of cultural fusion. The decision to blend the sculptural fragmentation of Picasso with the ideological force of the Russian avant-garde was not merely aesthetic; it was dialogic. I saw it as an opportunity to stage a kind of visual diplomacy, a synthesis that reflected on both historical rupture and the potential for harmony. The Moscow setting certainly played a role. There’s an unmistakable gravitas to exhibiting in a place so central to the story of modernism and revolution. The work became a kind of homage, but also an interrogation of what “East” and “West” really mean in the context of contemporary globalized art. In my broader practice, I’ve long been drawn to the interplay of visual systems across time and geography. Whether juxtaposing a Renaissance composition with an Asian iconographic gesture or embedding Byzantine symmetry within a digital construct, I’m less interested in exoticism than in resonance. The aim isn’t to flatten distinctions, nor to romanticize cultural boundaries, but to find points of entanglement—moments where seemingly disparate traditions echo one another in unexpected ways.
: Early on, many noted the humour and whimsy in your works – the visual puns and playful transplantations. In recent years, some works feel more somber or uncanny. Do you feel your artistic tone has shifted as your personal outlook or philosophical focus has changed?
There’s truth in the observation. In my earlier work, humour functioned as a kind of rupture—visual puns, misalignments, and anachronisms that unsettled the canon with a wink. It was never slapstick, but there was an unmistakable mischief in recontextualizing Snow White or Alice into existential or surreal tableaux. That playfulness was a form of critique, a way to expose the absurdity embedded within cultural hierarchies and iconographies. But over the last few years—particularly since my integration of AI into the creative process in 2021—the tone has indeed deepened. Works like Always Screaming When Her Voice Is Cracked don’t seek to provoke laughter; they lean instead toward the uncanny, the liminal, even the spiritual. Part of this shift reflects a broader philosophical reorientation. This tonal shift isn’t necessarily darker, but it is more contemplative. Perhaps more sacred. There’s a new humility in the face of the machine and the mirror it holds up to us—one that invites less laughter and more stillness.
: Alchemy seems to be a recurring metaphor in your art – you’ve referenced it in titles and your 2018 Saatchi show explicitly linked to an alchemists’ society. How do alchemical ideas play into your process?
Alchemy has always fascinated me—not as pseudoscience or esoteric nostalgia, but as metaphor. It’s a way of thinking about transformation: how base material, whether visual or philosophical, can be metabolized into something elevated or strange. At the time of painting The School of Night, I was reading the scholar Frances Yates and many books on notable figures in Elizabethan England, such as Sir Walter Raleigh and the School of Night. I was also looking at the works of Dr. John Dee and Cornelius Agrippa. In referencing Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, I was enacting a kind of painterly transmutation. The figures of The School of Night are suffused with a transformation into gold, as if the alchemical process had manifested literally within the image. In my earlier practice, this metaphor was more literal—referencing specific societies, medieval texts, or iconographies.
But today, particularly with the integration of AI into my work, alchemy feels more alive than ever. The process of image-generation—of combining latent data, gestures, and histories into something uncanny and entirely new—feels akin to transmutation. It’s not just remixing; it’s a search for the philosopher’s stone hidden in the dataset. In that sense, yes, I do see myself as an alchemist of sorts. My ingredients aren’t sulphur and mercury, but fragments of memory, art history, and algorithmic code.
: With a formal background in philosophy, do you consciously engage with philosophical texts or concepts while creating art? For example, your piece Werewolf (2011) famously references Derrida’s The Beast and the Sovereign. Are there current philosophical questions that preoccupy you – perhaps about reality simulation, given your AI work, or about the authenticity of the image in the digital age – that you find filtering into your paintings?
Philosophy has always been embedded in my work, not just as a reference point but as a mode of inquiry. In the early years—particularly with works like Werewolf—there was a kind of scholastic rigor, a deliberate dialogue with thinkers like Derrida, Foucault, and Bataille. That period was still fresh from academia, and my engagement was more textual, almost architectural in its fidelity to source ideas. I was building visual arguments—sometimes dense, sometimes playful, but always tethered to a critical lineage. Since then, the relationship has become less literal and more ontological. With the integration of AI, new philosophical questions have emerged—questions not just about the image, but about the very nature of perception, authorship, and agency. Wittgenstein’s language games, Baudrillard’s simulacra, or even Paul Feyerabend’s scepticism about epistemological hierarchy—these ideas now underpin my process more intuitively. They filter into the way I think about iteration, about machine-generated possibility, about the fluid authorship between human and algorithm.
One central concern today is the question of reality. Not in the naïve, material sense, but in terms of simulation and phenomenology. When an image is generated by AI and then hand-painted in oil, where does its authenticity reside? Is it in the brushstroke? The prompt, the training? The viewer’s recognition of something “real”? I find myself increasingly preoccupied with this liminality—this digital hauntology, if you will—where images feel both ancient and synthetic, familiar and unplaceable.
ARTWORK 「Always Screaming When Her voice is Cracked 」, Von Wolfe. Digital diffusion model with crafted iterations in post-production.
Courtesy of the artist.
ARTWORK 「Ebon 」, Von Wolfe.
Digital diffusion model with crafted iterations in post-production.
Courtesy of the artist.
: You’ve said that “no image is sacred” in your art– that you feel free to use any imagery, whether a religious icon or a modern meme. Have you ever hesitated or felt conflicted about a particular appropriation? How do you navigate the use of charged or sacred imagery?
The phrase “no image is sacred” wasn’t a dismissal of meaning—it was a provocation. A reminder that all images, whether sacred or secular, are part of a shared cultural language. My interest has always been in testing the boundaries of that language: how far it can be stretched, repurposed, even subverted, without collapsing into either cliché or offense. That said, I’ve never approached appropriation flippantly. When using an image like the Falling Man or a religious figure, the decision is weighed carefully—not to sensationalize, but to interrogate. What does it mean, for instance, to repurpose an icon that has already been consumed, politicized, or aestheticized in other media? Can the image be returned to a state of critical reflection, rather than passive recognition?
I’m less interested in shock for its own sake than I am in rupturing the complacency with which certain images are received. Art should disturb when necessary, but it should also illuminate the structures of that disturbance. If a viewer feels discomfort, I want that discomfort to be directed inward, toward their own assumptions about history, trauma, or sanctity—not simply outward, toward the image itself. The artist’s responsibility lies in that nuance. It’s not about avoiding offense—it’s about ensuring that any offence is meaningful, not gratuitous.
: When someone encounters one of your large-scale works for the first time, they often experience a double-take – first the shock of recognition, then the surprise of the unexpected element. What do you hope the viewer takes away after that surprise settles?
That moment of double recognition—the shock of the familiar turned uncanny—is absolutely intentional. I’ve always been interested in the slippage between what we think we know and what lies just beneath. When a viewer recognises, say, a familiar cartoon figure inside a reimagined Garden of Earthly Delights, I want that recognition to be destabilising. It’s a trapdoor. First they smile, then they wonder why they’re smiling. The absurdity is a hook, but the dissonance lingers. That second moment—the unease, the sense that something isn’t quite right—is where the real work begins. The image opens into a space of ambiguity, not to confuse, but to invite interpretation. I rarely prescribe a single narrative. Instead, I construct a kind of visual theatre where multiple readings can coexist: humour and horror, nostalgia and critique, spectacle and introspection. In a sense, I’m creating mirrors—images that reflect back the viewer’s own cultural assumptions, desires, and blind spots.
Is there critique? Absolutely. But it’s embedded, not shouted. The remixing of sacred and profane, historical and pop, is less about parody and more about exposing the continuum of visual culture—how the iconographies of sin, spectacle, or salvation persist, only in different guises. Today’s meme is tomorrow’s myth. As for how much I orchestrate—there’s always structure beneath the chaos. The compositions are meticulous, the choices deliberate. But I never want to close the image off with too much explanation. The viewer must be allowed to “fill in the blanks,” to inhabit the work as a kind of co-author. That’s where meaning gains traction—not from the artist dictating intent, but from the friction between what’s shown and what’s seen.
: There’s a beautiful irony in a painter of your classical skill embracing AI – it’s like the ultimate fusion of past and future. Some would say AI threatens the uniqueness of human creativity, especially in appropriation art; what’s your take on that debate?
Working with AI has been nothing short of revelatory. When I first began to explore diffusion models and algorithmic generation, I wasn’t seeking efficiency—I was chasing surprise. The algorithm, when trained with care and guided by intuition, doesn’t just produce variations—it reveals logics I wouldn’t have imagined. In that sense, AI has become less a tool and more a co-conspirator. It’s like collaborating with a ghost that speaks in the dialect of every image ever seen. There is, as you say, a beautiful irony in it. I trained in classical oil painting, steeped in the traditions of sight-size technique, atelier discipline, and historical composition. To pair that with machine learning feels like bringing the Renaissance into conversation with the digital unconscious. It’s not a betrayal of tradition—it’s a transformation of it. AI allows me to ask older questions in new ways: about originality, authorship, and what an image actually is.
The debate around AI “threatening” creativity is understandable, but I think it’s misplaced. Every technological shift has prompted existential anxiety in the art world. But art doesn’t dissolve under new tools; it adapts, reflects, and reinvents itself. What we’re witnessing isn’t the death of human creativity, but its expansion. AI forces us to reconsider what creativity means when the boundary between artist and machine becomes porous. Who authors an image when both intuition and computation are at play?
So yes, AI has transformed how I paint—but more importantly, it’s transformed how I think about painting. It’s not a replacement for the human—it’s a prism that refracts what it means to be one.
: Over the years, you’ve built a kind of personal mythology in your body of work – recurring motifs (the Alice in Wonderland motif, for instance, or the use of mirrors and playing cards that I’ve noticed in some works), and of course the motif of the wolf in your name. Do you see your entire oeuvre as interconnected?
Yes, I do see my body of work as a kind of evolving mythology—a constellation of symbols, references, and recurrences that have grown with me over time. The Alice figures, the playing cards, the mirrors, the wolf—all of them are more than visual tropes. They’re markers in an ongoing narrative, glyphs in a personal lexicon. Some began as deliberate metaphors, others emerged unconsciously, only revealing their coherence in retrospect. I think of them as waypoints—traces of where the psyche has been, and where it’s circling back to.
My recent projects, especially those involving AI and digital methodologies, have undeniably expanded that terrain. Where earlier works might have drawn primarily on art history and classical form, the newer pieces feel more global, more networked. They’re informed by a broader visual consciousness—one shaped by algorithms, machine logic, and the distributed aesthetics of the internet. That doesn’t negate the mythology I’ve built; it extends it.
