Steve Lomprey
Steve Lomprey was raised in New York City’s West Village, immersed in a vibrant artistic community that shaped his lifelong curiosity and creativity. He is a multimedia artist, founder of Carbon Based Projects, and the mind behind the TV series REAL FICTIONS, which explores human perception and possibility.
As Founder and CEO of The New Narrative Project, Steve creates media experiences that challenge conventional thinking, offering an “overview effect” that reimagines our collective possibilities. In his Montclair, California studio, he produces mixed-media abstractions, blending paint, materials, and digital processes into works that are uniquely expressive, unpredictable, and process-driven.
Exhibited at SFMOMA Artists Gallery, the San Francisco Fine Art Fair, and the Los Angeles Art Show, and held by clients including Stanford University, Facebook, and Lexus, Steve’s work reflects a lifelong pursuit of curiosity, exploration, and the endless possibilities of imagining and seeing the world through the widest lens.
The artists parents (L), The artist playing softball in NYC, he is pitching (R)
Hugh Leeman: Your mother and father were creative young spirits in the 1960s and 70s. How did they influence your creativity?
Steve Lomprey: It wasn't just my parents' creativity, though they both went to Pratt—my mother doing sculpture, my father painting and design. When I was five or six, we ended up in Manhattan, eventually moving into Westbeth in the West Village, one of the first artist cooperatives in New York. The building took up a whole city block and was full of artists—Diane Arbus lived there, Merce Cunningham rehearsed on the top floor. Our own place was big, about 1600 square feet, and my parents were always making work there. But what really shaped me was the environment: going into other apartments, seeing friends' parents painting, composing, sculpting—it felt like the whole building was alive with creativity. Growing up in New York, then, especially at Westbeth, you couldn't help but absorb that energy.
Alien Landscape Series, mixed media on canvas, 60” x 60”
HL: In a previous interview, you mentioned the concept of the "invented landscape" and its role in your art practice. What is the invented landscape, and how do the philosophies in this concept influence your art projects?
SL: The “Invented Landscape" was a term I came up with to describe the constructed nature of human civilization—the way things like money, borders, and territories are essentially narratives we've authored and then collectively agreed to believe in. They gain momentum, but they're still invented. For me, bringing that lens into art is liberating. When you zoom out, you realize even the art world is full of assumptions—what it means to be a painter, what mediums you should use, the tropes people fall into. But the truth is, there are no rules. Recognizing the art world itself as an invented landscape frees you to work without being bound by those ideas of what art should or shouldn't be.
Artifact Series, mixed media on canvas, 60” x 60”
HL: In your practice, you use a flatbed printer to paint the digital elements of your art that are layered with traditional analog painting. It seems there is an element of letting go of control that leads to collaborations with, as you call it, "the alien." What is "the alien," and how does it inspire collaborations on your art?
SL: When I talk about "the alien," I mean it pretty literally—as a kind of field of possibility I'm collaborating with. My earlier work mixed painting with flatbed printing and then painting back over the prints. Now I'm working with AI, mainly Stable Diffusion, where I've been developing my own language of prompts to generate images. Once I have results, I take them into Photoshop—sometimes combining, deconstructing, or recoloring them. So the collaboration is between this alien intelligence producing unexpected forms and my own skills in shaping, enhancing, and reconstructing them.
Alien Landscape Series, paint and mixed media on canvas, 60” x60”
HL: You have been experimenting with the concept of landscapes in various media for some time. Recently, you started a series titled Alien Landscapes, which you speak of referencing mythic and imaginary qualities. Can you talk a bit more about the process and inspiration behind titling the landscapes as Alien, and what is the power of myth in your painting?
SL: Calling them "alien" or "alien landscapes" works as a kind of double entendre. On one hand, I'm collaborating with this alien tool—AI, in my case Stable Diffusion—that some people see as otherworldly. On the other hand, the images themselves often feel alien in nature. I've been experimenting with language to guide results, using words like "mythic," "distressed," or "romantic" just to see what emerges. But I rarely leave the outputs as they are—I'll take them into Photoshop, reconstruct or deconstruct them, shift elements around, and adjust the color and intensity until the image feels resolved.
Artifact Series, paint and mixed media on canvas, 60” x 60”
HL: You mentioned that this process connects with John Cage's Chance Operations and Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies. What is the connection you see in this process with these artists?
SL: I’ve always felt a connection to artists like John Cage and Brian Eno. Eno created Oblique Strategies, a deck of cards with random prompts like "do the opposite of what you intended" or "remove the lowest frequency instrument." Musicians would use them when they were stuck in the studio to break through creative blocks. Cage, on the other hand, worked with chance operations—using tools like the I Ching or dice to literally determine the next notes in a composition. What I'm doing with AI feels similar. There's a lot of hit-and-miss, a lot of experimenting with language and parameters to push the system. You can only control it so much, and that unpredictability is what makes it exciting. Then I take those chaotic results and manipulate them further until they work as finished images.
Artifact Series, paint and mixed media on canvas, 60” x 60”
HL: In a series titled COLLABORATIONS WITH THE ALIEN, you are using stable diffusion, a generative AI. You previously wrote, "Stable diffusion as a tool is very similar, although it's much more interactive. You can use language to define and clarify a domain of inquiry and a series of results. Then it becomes a matter of curation and refinement." Can you talk about the curation and refinement process and how it is a part of your traditional artistic practice?
SL: The short answer is yes—it is connected to a traditional art practice. When you're painting with brushes on canvas or paper, you're constantly making decisions: covering work, revealing it again, excavating, taking risks, making bold moves. In that sense, there's a direct correlation between analog and digital approaches. The difference is flexibility. In digital, you can reverse big moves, work in layers, and test out changes instantly. In analog, you still have flexibility, but it's slower, more laborious, and the decisions are harder to undo.
GUERRILLA , mixed media on panel, 72” x 144”
HL: Over 4 years ago, you began experimenting with digital art in your analog art practice, with a 12-foot-wide painting. From the artwork more than 4 years ago, before the mainstream release of generative AI, until now, how have the advancements in new technology influenced your artwork?
SL: It might sound cliché, but it's just another tool—the tools don't really change my taste, my preferences, or what I'm trying to do. They can surprise me, though. Some of the mixes of analog and digital have produced accidents that turned out to be quite happy. Lately, I've been working mostly with AI-assisted images on printed surfaces, but what I'm trying to push now is the surface itself—experimenting with 3D printing textures before printing the image, so the texture coincides with the image. I'm exploring different techniques and technologies around that.
GUERRILLA, mixed media on panel, 72” x 144”
HL: Scraping to train AI models is a fraught and litigious issue where AI models are trained through using images and information that likely violates creators' copyright, yet you have been collaborating with former Autodesk CEO Carl Bass to create an AI model that does not do this. Can you tell us more about this?
SL: Yes, what Carl and I are working on now is an autonomous AI agent—an enclosed system that produces flat artwork, sculptures, and audio. We're building it with a web-based interface, and we'll probably be prototyping for at least a year before there's any kind of public-facing version. The idea is to create one of the first autonomous art agents with its own unique body of work, not scraping or referencing outside images or data. Once it's in motion, it generates results on its own. We can tweak things along the way, but only to support its autonomy and improve the quality of what it produces.
Artifact Series, paint and mixed media on canvas, 60” x 60”
HL: How do you see AI affecting the future of the arts?
SL: I think AI's influence on art is going to be wide-ranging. From commercial realms like design, illustration, advertising, and filmmaking to fine art and conceptual work, it will affect all kinds of creative practice. The commercial side is likely to see the most displacement, which is unfortunate, but my own approach is different: I'm focusing on creating autonomous, exploratory work that isn't replacing anyone, more of a conceptual and artistic experiment at the fringes. We're still in the early stages of building our system, so it's hard to predict, but AI will impact all image-making in some way. I completely understand why people feel threatened, but I hope artists can use AI as a tool to deepen their work rather than be displaced—hopefully, that's the more optimistic outcome.
Screen shot of Real Fictions streaming series
HL: You are developing a streaming series that features Madison McFerrin as host and Astrophysicist Dr. Sarah Pearson, which you speak of as focusing on our extraordinary circumstances. What are the foundational elements of those extraordinary circumstances you are highlighting, and what do you hope viewers will take away from this?
SL: What I hope viewers take away from Real Fictions is really simple at its core: People, Plants, Animals, Earth, the Sun, and Space are real—the rest is invented. That's where my term "the invented landscape" comes from. The series aims to constructively deconstruct our common human predicament, looking at it from many viewpoints with curiosity and a wide lens. The idea is to show that we're the authors of what's happening here, not just victims—that societies, cultures, borders, and boundaries are agreements, contingent and constructed, not sacrosanct. Through guests from different fields—entertainers, philosophers, scientists, and more—I want to explore the big picture through the prism of their own work and perspectives.
Artifact Series, paint and mixed media on canvas, 60” x 60”
HL: Science, technology, and subatomic particles are elements that you speak of in interviews and talks. How did they come to be such an important part of your interest and influence elements of your traditional path progress?
SL: I’ve always been fascinated by science and technology, especially subatomic particles—the smallest elements that create the conditions for matter to appear. There's something compelling about how these fundamental particles form atoms and molecules, which eventually build up to complex life like us. The context we exist in is so vast and fast-moving that I find it inspiring. Seeing things from a universal, interplanetary, or cosmic perspective gives a kind of freedom from cultural or social constraints. It lets you approach art-making and creativity from a much broader perspective, entertaining ideas and possibilities that aren't limited by socially constructed parameters. Looking at the subatomic and the cosmic scales simultaneously allows for a wider, more expansive approach to creating.
