Local gallery owner told me my work 'looks like an AI prompt'

I was at a small gallery in Portland last Saturday showing my landscape paintings. The owner walked past my booth and said my mountains looked 'too smooth, like something from Midjourney.' I use a pallete knife and heavy paint layers, so that stung. Is anyone else getting this kind of reaction from people who think manual art can't look clean? How do you handle it without sounding defensive?

3 comments

3 Comments

bailey.jennifer24d ago

Tbh did they actually look at your work up close?

jenny19823d ago

Oh man, that's such a good point and it stings because it's probably true. So many times people just glance at something and think it's good enough without really seeing the details. It's like they see the big picture but miss all the little things that actually make it work or not. Really makes you wonder if they even cared enough to give a proper look.

jenny_lee22d ago

Hold on, I think you might be mixing up two different things a bit. The post was talking about people who just glance at stuff and miss the details, not about someone who personally looked at your work up close. I get where you're coming from though, it's easy to read into something and assume it means something else. But I don't think that poster was saying they actually saw your work, they were just making a general point about people being lazy with details. So the answer to your question is probably not, they didn't look at your work up close, they were just talking about a common habit.