Fantasy and Mythological Art constitutes a speculative strand within my artistic research, situated at the intersection of imagination, cultural memory, fandom, medievalism, and emerging technologies. Drawing on a wide range of narrative traditions — including fantasy worlds, mythologies, Biblical narratives, historical figures, sagas, legends, and fairy tales — this body of work explores how stories from the past are continually reimagined within contemporary visual culture. Through the lens of medievalism, the works examine not the Middle Ages themselves, but the ways in which medieval motifs, figures, and imaginaries are reshaped, romanticised, and reactivated in the present.
While some works are executed entirely by hand, others are deliberately AI-assisted, functioning as digital collages in which generative imagery is selected, edited, recomposed, and further developed through human intervention. In this practice, AI is not positioned as a substitute for artistic skill, but as a contemporary tool whose cultural, ethical, and aesthetic implications are themselves part of the inquiry. Rather than concealing the use of generative systems, the work foregrounds transparency and reflexivity, situating AI-assisted image-making within longer histories of collage, remix, fan art, and participatory culture.
This strand of my practice engages explicitly with ongoing debates surrounding authorship, creativity, and ethics in the context of generative technologies — debates that I also address in my academic publications and critical writing on AI and fan cultures (see for example Mussies 2023; 2025). By integrating theory and practice, these works examine hybrid forms of authorship and the shifting boundaries between human imagination and machinic generation. My fantasy and mythological artworks have been exhibited at, among others, Bibliotheek Neude and Lister location Waalstraat, and have been published in Lembas, the Dutch Tolkien Society magazine. A number of digitally produced works have also been sold as curated compositions, emphasising their status as intentional, authored collages rather than automated outputs. Within my broader artistic practice, fantasy and mythological art functions as a site of experimentation and critical reflection, where medieval imaginaries, ancient narratives, and contemporary technologies converge.
Dragons made with kid’s crayons and generative AI.
The poster for my first exhibition of Fantasy Art.