David Sheldrick’s art embarks on a visual odyssey through the streets, offices, marketplaces and blossoms of South Korea, encapsulating the essence of his personal journey. Each piece evolves into a tapestry of memories, a testament to the artist’s voyage from childhood to the present. Through a dialogue with artificial intelligence, Sheldrick transmutes these personal memories into objectified, abstracted and beautified landscapes. His expansive tableaus extend an invitation, beckoning viewers to navigate the labyrinth of South Korean culture – a tapestry interwoven with the past and the future – drawing from the history of photography and painting as well as the world building ambitions of gaming culture.
You can trace the intricate complexity of artists who transcended world orders – from Da Vinci and Hieronymus Bosch to modern visions found in 20th century propaganda art and dreamlike abstractions of today’s digital art and culture. He connects this to the contemporary development in art to focus on identity in a post-colonial world – all filtered through the decisive lens of contemporary K-Pop culture. The glossy allure with which the latter has inscribed itself into global cultural memory permeates through his visual tableaus, creating a mesmerizing amalgamation.

Sheldrick also intricately weaves Adam Curtis’ concept of hypernormalization into his creations. Korea emerges as the canvas for a societal narrative hurtling toward an extreme reality, where the boundaries between the authentic and the simulated blur. In a world saturated with graphic stimuli, Sheldrick’s art mirrors this shift, pushing the limits of what visual art can convey in an era defined by perpetual acceleration.
Within the intricate tapestry of Sheldrick’s creations, the tension between tradition and rapid modernization in Korean society surfaces as a central theme. His art becomes a poignant commentary on the disregard for historical neighborhoods in the name of progress, symbolizing the perpetual struggle between the past and the relentless march of the present.

In a nuanced dialogue with artificial intelligence, Sheldrick positions himself as both creator and conduit. Plugging his memories into the machine, he conjures new worlds that defy traditional artistic boundaries. Artificial intelligence excels in zooming into his dreamlike realms, revealing diverse scenarios showcasing the bliss and abyss of industrialization and culture, the beauty of nature, and an overarching focus on the mechanisms, rhythms and orders of society. Sheldrick’s compositions, coated with visual precision and magnitude, shift the focus from the individual to the interweaving patterns of society – a distinctly Asian perspective on humanity, emphasizing the collective good over the radical individualism dominating the West. Influenced by thinkers like Jean Baudrillard, Sheldrick explores the intricate relationship between humanity and technology, transcending the confines of traditional artistic creation in a surreal vastness of landscapes. Some of them populated by humans, others full of beautiful nature enriched with futuristic sculptural elements showing human involvement even in its representational absence. Over all, Sheldrick is asking humanity: Who drives the world – our intention or the power of technology, which has been hurtling us into an unknown future for decades.

In a departure from the dystopian aesthetics prevalent in AI art, Sheldrick deliberately infuses his creations with positivity and fascination. The sprawling energy radiating from his images becomes a metaphor for societal shifts and accelerations, offering viewers a lens through which to navigate the complexities of the present with a sense of inspiration and reflection.
In the realm of AI artistry, David Sheldrick’s work stands as a profound revelation, creating new vectors in the young and yet to be explored genre. Through a delicate dance between personal memories and societal dynamics in a rapidly advancing technological age, he unveils profound truths embedded within the layers of memory and the transformative nature of our shared reality. Overall, Sheldrick’s creations serve as mirrors, inviting contemplation on the evolving nature of the world we inhabit.