KATSU The Artist Who Paints With Drones
KATSU is a San Francisco-based graffiti artist turned fine artist who works in an entirely unique, and freakishly modern manner through which he calls into question the very definition of the artist.
Over the past decade, he has developed a new way of painting using specialist software and custom-built autonomous and semi-autonomous drones which render directly onto the canvas. The resultant works are cheeky, playful, commanding and intriguing – once one realises the methods through which they are generated, poignant questions emerge regarding validity, provenance and authorship. If the drone made the work, does KATSU having made and programmed the drone mean it’s his piece? Moreover, what does this say about the future of art? In an art world where we have all come to know that many of the giants (I’m talking Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst) don’t always fabricate their work themselves, is this merely a logical extension of the status quo? [...]
October 5, 2022