Acrylic Robotics Creating a Tapestry Between Traditional Art and AI

During the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, Montreal-based Acrylic Robotics showcased its technology and use of AI. Founder and CEO Chloë Ryan set up an in-person demo that showed how Acrylic Robotics is capable of reproducing the work of artists with an impressive degree of authenticity.

Ryan founded Acrylic Robotics when she was 20 in 2021. As an artist in her second year of engineering at McGill University, Ryan began working on solutions that would impact artists holistically and sustainably. One of the challenges many artists face is providing options for reproductions of their work that didn’t derive from prints. Breaking into the fine art categories is already a challenge for independent artists. As the most accessible method of copying an original piece by recreating it within a print, Acrylic Robotics reproduces the art using AI, digital tools, and of course paint. The result is a piece that mimics the original in all but the original brushstrokes from the artist.

As of the time of writing, Acrylic Robotics is working with a number of artists, discovering way to reproduce their art in sustainable and ethical ways. The company has around 500 global artists on a waitlist wanting to use the services from the company. Depending on the work, the robot needs between a few hours to upwards of 12 hours to complete a piece. That, of course, is dependant on the complexity and size of the work of art.

Over the course of an afternoon, I watched from within a hall at AWS: re:Invent as an AI robot methodically dipped its brush into acrylic paint, and applied one stroke after another on a small canvas. It was judiciously careful and was programmed to only make calculated brush strokes. Using AI, the robot was producing a 1:1 recreation of an artist’s piece. This method allows artists to reproduce their work without the intensive hours of labour required. Plus, as much as an artist knows their own work, there’ll undoubtedly be variables between two man-made pieces of acrylic paintings when done by hand. Acrylic Robotics’ use of AI and traditional painting also makes it more accessible for the average household to purchase finer art pieces.

As Ryan explained to iPhone in Canada, the fine art industry is estimated to be worth around $70 billion USD (around $100.3 billion CAD). As other pieces of art and entertainment have grown and evolved in the digital age, Ryan believes that the art market has remained stagnant. Ryan argues for so long, the value of fine art is placed upon its scarcity. Whereas in other markets, the value of the art is dependant on the subject itself.

“It used to be, “Oh, I have one copy of a handwritten manuscript, and nobody can access it,”‘ Ryan explains. “Nobody can read it. It’s in my vault. It’s in a glass display case. Then the printing press and other of these technologies were invented. They democratize access to the great literature. And the value is in how many copies are sold, not what one individual paid 10 million for the book and is hiding it in a bunker in the Alps, right? So, I’m interested in how can we value art, not just because it’s rare, but because it’s good.”

The reality is that finer pieces of art are usually exclusive to wealthier households with the means of investing in original pieces. The alternative, which is far more accessible, is a digital print of original pieces. However, they intrinsically lack the depth and feel of a handpainted piece of art on a canvas. There’s a discernible lack of texture, shadows, and love that goes into these. Acrylic Robotics’ technology mitigates this by using AWS’s machine learning service, SageMaker, to analyze original pieces of work and then leverage an algorithm artists can use to reproduce their work. For paint and canvas artists, the AI can create a replica using precise brush strokes, mix appropriate colours and layer the design bit by bit. SageMarker can also analyze work from digital artists. This technology can track each stroke made on a tablet and virtual illustration app.

Naturally, this kind of use of technology and AI can be scary for artists. To know Acrylic Robotics has developed a way to reproduce original pieces can strike fear over the worry that pieces could be used without consent. There’s also the matter of how and when Acrylic Robotics is using these pieces. Ryan spoke to us about the ethical responsibility she feels when working with artists and ensuring fair and honest compensation.

“My ethos is that to do this ethically, you need to always have the artist informed explicit consent,” Ryan explains. “Whenever you either create a piece that was made by them originally or create a piece in their style, then you always need to credit them. So how can we track the use of that style throughout our platform? Obviously, this is in the style of or designed by this artist. That even you know, feeds through to how we publish Instagram posts, always crediting the artist.

“Then last is compensation. How can we make sure to fairly compensate the artist for their for their works? How do you make sure that artists trust you? How can we be the pro artist brand? My goal is not to be ripping off artist styles. We put a lot of careful consideration into how we train our models. We make sure that we are not trained on any artist data whatsoever until they say “Yes, produce my art.” We ensure every single time that the artist sets a cap on production. So the artist says, I want only 10 or only one or only 100 and we produce exactly that, and that’s it.”

The lofty goals of Acrylic Robotics and Ryan come as altruistic. A big portion of what the company sets out to do is allow art to become more accessible. For instance, to see the Mona Lisa, you’d have to travel to Paris and visit the Louvre Museum. However, with Acrylic Robotics’ technology, near identical reproductions of pieces of art can be placed on display around the globe at various art installations.

“A lot of the world’s best art cannot be seen by the communities that helped create it,” says Ryan. “So, this is the piece that I was talking about by Norval Morrisseau [a replicated piece that was on display]. It’s very expensive now, you need a private plane to fly it around. If you are in a remote Indigenous community, in his home community, you aren’t seeing his art. You can see photos on a screen. You can see these low-quality photo prints, but you never get to access this art. That’s a really interesting example. How can we actually bring this artist’s art back to his own communities or to other communities that don’t have the resources to export a painting to Scotland put it in a gallery?”