Digital Algorithms and Painting in Lithuania: From Tool to a New Form of Imagination

Contemporary artists working with artificial intelligence in Lithuania raise a fundamental question: where does the tool end and where do the forms of human imagination begin? This topic is relevant to anyone interested in contemporary art, painting, artworks, and how technology can expand the boundaries of creativity. In Yuge Kurt’s work, technology appears alongside painting. The artist holds a clear position on this: an AI-generated image is not, in itself, the final goal of a work. It does not interest her as such, but it acts as a new creative medium, much like paint, collage, or fragments of everyday objects, helping to recreate, break apart, and reread an already existing authorial field. That is why the algorithmic interpretations in Yuge Kurt’s practice are based on her own works, texts, motifs, and visual language. In this way, AI becomes not a foreign image generator, but a controlled part of the creative process.

Key Insights

• In contemporary art, artificial intelligence increasingly acts not as the final result of a work, but as one of the tools of the creative process. The shift is from the picture to the process.

• In Yuge Kurt’s practice, AI does not replace painting. Algorithmic interpretations are based on her own paintings, texts, motifs, and authorial visual language.

• In Yuge Kurt’s work, synthetic images are used much like paint, collage, or other materials: to break down and transform the image and to search for new possibilities of interpretation.

• The physical work remains the foundation of Yuge Kurt’s practice, while the algorithm becomes a controlled participant in the creative process, helping to expand the artist’s imagination but not replacing authorship.

How Does an AI-Generated Image Differ From Yuge Kurt’s Creative Method?

Aspect of the work: Where does the work begin?

A typical AI-generated image: With a text prompt or the algorithm of a digital model.

How it works in Yuge Kurt’s practice: With a hand-drawn sketch, where spontaneity, the rhythm of the line, and the first intuition of the image matter, along with the process, the theme, and a combination of words.

What does this help us understand? Technology is not the beginning of the work here, it is its continuation. At the start, there is always a person.

Aspect of the work: What is the main creative medium?

A typical AI-generated image: A digital image seen on a screen or in a projection.

How it works in Yuge Kurt’s practice: Painting (watercolour, oil, acrylic), in which the digital layer appears as an addition.

What does this help us understand? Yuge Kurt’s work should not be mistakenly described as only “digitally generated art”.

Aspect of the work: What is the role of technology?

A typical AI-generated image: The algorithm acts as the main mechanism for creating the image.

How it works in Yuge Kurt’s practice: Machine learning and digital interpretations act as an additional layer of experience.

What does this help us understand? Technology complements but does not replace the human hand.

Aspect of the work: What does the viewer experience?

A typical AI-generated image: They see the final image but do not necessarily understand its physical origin.

How it works in Yuge Kurt’s practice: They see the work as a multilayered experience: painting, digital interpretation, movement, or augmented reality.

What does this help us understand? The work becomes not only an image, but also a process that can be read on several levels.

Aspect of the work: Why does uniqueness matter?

A typical AI-generated image: A digital image is easily copied or generated in similar variations.

How it works in Yuge Kurt’s practice: Physical painting has a unique material foundation, where colour and chance create singularity.

What does this help us understand? The original, the handwork, and the materiality of the work keep their value.

What Are Digital Interpretations in Contemporary Art?

Digital interpretations in contemporary art are a process in which artists use technology as a creative tool, a way of interpreting, or an additional layer, rather than as the main author of the work. A digital interpretation should be understood not as a copy of the physical work, but as another way of reading it. It makes it possible to test what happens to an image when its scale, rhythm, movement, context, or visual logic changes. At the same time, it raises the question of how much a work can change while still keeping its connection to the original authorial idea.

In 2026, the use of artificial intelligence in art is moving further away from the mere novelty of generated images and toward deeper inquiry. Artists are increasingly concerned with how algorithms change the way we see, how we perceive images, how we understand authorship, and how we relate to reality. This is clearly visible in Germany, where the SCHIRN Kunsthalle Frankfurt exhibition “The World Through AI” examined AI not only as an image-making tool, but also through psychological, political, ecological, and cognitive questions. In the wider European context, more attention is also being paid to the transparency of human input, authorship, the provenance of works, and how to distinguish human-made, AI-assisted, and fully generated content. That is why one of the most prominent directions of 2026 is not the question “was this art made with AI?” but a far more interesting one: what does AI allow the artist to see, interpret, or rethink differently than was possible before

Why Is the Technological Layer in Art Not Just Image Generation?

Today, the technological layer in art can mean much more than a short text prompt and an automatically generated picture. In contemporary practice, algorithms act as tools for analysis, interpretation, animation, image transformation, archival research, or additional experience. They can be trained not on anonymous internet images, but on material created by the artist, personal archives, drawings, photographs, or texts, and in this way become part of an individual artistic method.

Another direction is also becoming more visible: the move from a one-off AI-generated result to continuously running systems. Works can respond to the viewer’s movement, real-time data, or the surrounding environment, while autonomous AI agents can analyse information, build connections, and change the form of a work while it is already on display. In that case, technology is no longer just a means of producing an image. It becomes part of the work’s structure, behaviour, and time.

At the same time, the link between the physical and digital worlds is growing stronger. AI increasingly appears not only on screen, but also in relation to painting, sculpture, textiles, robotics, projection, sound, or spatial installation. The digital layer can extend the physical work, interpret it, destabilise it, or reveal what is not visible at first glance in the material object.

That is why the mere fact that artificial intelligence was used in a work matters less and less today. What matters far more is the function it performs, who shaped the material it uses, and how much control the artist has over the whole process. Along with new technological possibilities, very old questions about authorship, originality, and responsibility are returning to the art field. Now they are joined by questions of data provenance, model transparency, and creative agency.

This is exactly where the difference between a superficial technological effect and a deeper artistic method appears. In one case, AI remains a tool for quickly producing a visual result. In the other, it becomes part of a considered creative system through which the artist can explore memory, identity, human behaviour, cultural archives, or the influence of technology itself on our perception.

Returning to the process where AI only creates illustrations, it is important not to confuse digital interpretations with synthetic images. Digital interpretation is the broader concept: it is any reworking or extension of a work in a digital medium, such as animation, AR, digital collage, or AI transformation.

A synthetic image is more specific: it is an image generated algorithmically or by AI that did not necessarily exist directly in physical reality. In other words, a synthetic image can be one of the forms of digital interpretation.

This is especially relevant in the art field, because some artists and viewers approach algorithmic tools with caution. The question often arises whether such technology diminishes the importance of authorship, handwork, and materiality. When the foundation of a work is painting, the question becomes more precise: not “did an algorithm create the work?” but “how does technology change the experience of an already existing work?”

This approach makes it possible to speak more clearly about Yuge Kurt and similar artists. They are not just users of technology. They explore how a physical work can have an additional digital life without losing its material origin.

How Does a Painting Expand Through Digital Solutions in Yuge Kurt’s Work?

In Yuge Kurt’s work, painting is the main field from which digital and technological layers grow. Their appearance is driven not by the technology itself, but by the theme and idea of the work and by the relationship the artist wants to create with the viewer. That is why digital tools are used only when they help strengthen the message of the work, expand its experience, or open an additional layer of interpretation.

It is not always possible for the viewer to recognise how many different technologies lie behind the final image. What is often called “AI” at first glance may in fact be the result of machine learning, 3D modelling, animation algorithms, image generation, video and sound editing, or several different programs. In Yuge Kurt’s practice, what matters is not the demonstration of a particular technology, but combining them into one creative process in which the artistic idea always determines the tool

How Does a Digital Extension of Painting Differ From an Algorithm-Based Creative Process?

The difference lies first of all in the genesis of the work. In a digital extension of painting, the starting point is the physical work: the movement of the hand, the material, sketches, and previous artistic experience. Technology comes in later as a means of interpretation or transformation. In an algorithm-based process, the work is shaped from the very beginning in a digital system, through a text prompt, a generative model, or another algorithmic procedure.

These two ways of creating are not hierarchical, but they shape different fields of meaning for the work. When an image first appears in a generative system, its origin is often tied to how the model works, its data structures, and the chosen parameters. A work that grows out of an artist’s physical practice usually has a longer prehistory: sketches, the development of motifs, earlier cycles, material experiments, personal experiences, and decisions that make it possible to trace convincingly why this particular image appeared at a particular time. In that case, the viewer encounters not only the final form, but also the wider genealogy of the work.

In Yuge Kurt’s work, it is the first model that matters: the works are made by hand, while AI and other digital tools become an additional layer that extends painting but does not replace it.

When Does Technology Strengthen a Work, and When Does It Start to Overshadow It?

When talking about algorithmic tools and contemporary painting, it makes more sense to look not at technology as a phenomenon in itself, but at the origin of the work. It is important to ask what in it came from the artist’s experience, ideas, decisions, and material, and what was entrusted to a digital process. The presence of technology alone gives a work neither relevance nor depth. Sometimes it only creates an impression of novelty. What matters most, then, is whether the digital layer actually changes the meaning of the work or only aestheticises an already existing form. Only then can technology be discussed not as an effect, but as a well-grounded part of the artistic language.

In the case of Yuge Kurt’s work, three things are worth noting:

1. Yuge Kurt’s work usually begins with a drawing or a painted canvas. The foundation of her practice is made up of the material and bodily aspects of painting: colour, surface, composition, the spontaneity of the gesture, and the movement of the hand. The direction of the work is shaped by the theme, the idea, and the relationship with the chosen material.

2. The technological layer acts as an extension, not a replacement. In Yuge Kurt’s work, digital tools give the process speed, provoke intermediate states of the image, and suggest new ways of expressing it, but the artist herself always determines their final direction. Technology here does not create the idea or make the decision. It carries out the request, and the artist chooses what becomes part of the work. According to Yuge Kurt, technology does not develop the thought, it gives it a new form. That is why the digital layer becomes not a replacement for painting, but a search for a new artistic language closer to the visual experience of people today.

3. Technology must be connected to the idea and logic of the work. Only then can the digital layer bring out a mood, strengthen inner tension, continue the transformation of form, or open another direction for the imagination. Technology often seems to cause unease because it creates an illusion of autonomy, as if it could see, choose, and create on its own. In reality, however, it works through prompts, data, and systems set by people: it connects, recomposes, constructs, and transforms existing visual material. The artist’s role does not disappear here. It is the artist who sets the direction, selects, rejects, and decides which of the many intermediate forms becomes part of the work.

FAQ

What does “digital interpretations in painting” mean?

It is a process in which artists use algorithmic and generative tools as a creative instrument, a method of analysis, or an additional layer. It is important to distinguish work that begins with generation from work in which technology extends an already created physical piece.

How do digital interpretations differ from AI digital art?

A digital interpretation is the extension or reworking of an existing work in a digital medium. It can be created through animation, 3D, video editing, augmented reality, machine learning, or AI.

AI digital art is a narrower concept, where artificial intelligence is one of the main tools for creating the image and the work may begin with the generation process itself.

Put simply: a digital interpretation usually begins with an existing work, while AI art can begin with an algorithm.

Next Step

To better understand how digital algorithms are changing painting today, it is worth starting not with the technology itself, but with the work and the circumstances in which it came into being. In Yuge Kurt’s practice, machine learning, digital interpretations, and other technological tools grow out of physical painting, personal themes, and a consistently developed authorial direction.

Looking through her creative cycles and exhibition history makes it clearer how technology works here not as an end in itself, but as a means of testing new states of the image, expanding the meanings of the work, and searching for an artistic language closer to today’s viewer.

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