PSJM, Dishwasher, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 105 cm

The creative, theoretical, and management team PSJM (Cynthia Viera and Pablo San José) presents Nuevo Indigenismo (New Indigenism), a revision of the Canarian Indigenism movement. This avant-garde movement, which emerged from the Luján Pérez School in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the 1930s, was characterized by its plastic synthesis and its vindication of the unique Canarian identity.

Nuevo Indigenismo delves into the features of this modern Canarian tradition that can serve as a reference for contemporary social art. The work explores themes such as identity, territory, labor, precariousness, and synthetic formalization, highlighting their relevance in today’s artistic discourse.

LOCATION:
Antonio Padrón House Museum. Indigenous Art Centre. Gáldar, Gran Canaria.

LM Arte Colección Museum. La Laguna, Tenerife.

DATE:
2024
2025

DNA: the genetic composition of the current Canarian population

To reinterpret this distinctive Canarian ‘ethnic type’, PSJM draws on data extracted from DNA analyses carried out by Rosa Fregel, a researcher at the University of La Laguna and a leading scientist in the study of the ethnic composition of the Canarian population throughout history. The study by Fregel and her team provides significant statistical data on the genetic composition of the current population in the Canary Islands.

PSJM, Cleaner II, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 105 cm

Artificial Intelligence and Manual Painting: Interpreting Data

The creative process consists of a repeated execution of commands and interpretation—a kind of digital and pictorial hermeneutics. First, data on the statistical DNA composition of the current Canarian man or woman is entered, along with stylistic instructions to frame the image in the formal and thematic style of Canarian Indigenism. For example, to the prompt: “Geometric Impressionist style oil painting, portrait of a female hotel worker, with a face mixing 55% Iberian, 42% Berber, and 3% Sub-Saharan features, Canarian landscape with cardones, aloe, and cacti,” the artificial intelligence responds by generating several images.

Each time this same prompt is entered, the machine generates different images. Not all of them work. A selection process begins to find the right image. Once selected, the human hand then executes the machine’s command, and the PSJM team manually paints the image onto the canvas, as faithfully as possible to the sketch generated by the AI. The final result is an interpretation of the data’s interpretation, rendered in a pictorial key.