What gets better with age? Most people say wine or wisdom. But like it or not, for me It’s AI, and more specifically, AI art. It’s evolving fast, learning from every pixel, prompt, and mistake. But as AI gets better with age, so does every artist, we just do it slower. And maybe, just maybe, we become even more vital in this strange new era.
Because while machines get faster, more seamless, and more efficient, the human artist has something AI will never touch: meaning.
I look back at my own art, my Hypno Bat tees, babirusa prints, my flying fish stickers, my dream journal fragments—and it’s clear: my work isn’t just getting better. It’s getting deeper.
What do you think gets better with age?
That’s what time does. It layers. It scars. It stretches you. You start to say more with less. You learn to cut through the noise and let the weird, beautiful, broken stuff rise to the surface.
AI can generate 1,000 polished images in seconds. However, we don’t have to compete on speed. We have to compete on soul.
One of the best strategies for artists today?
Slow. The hell. Down.
Let AI race. Let it sprint. Our power is in the long walk, the intentional step, the ritual of creation.
We’ll never beat AI on volume—but we’re not meant to. We’re here to go deeper. Take people on a journey. Invite them into your studio, your head, your heart. Let them into your process.
Maybe make your own ink. Craft your own paper. Explore ancient traditions. Build a body of work rooted in slowness, substance, and strange wonder. Show the cracks. Share the unpolished bits. Let people feel your fingerprints in the work.
Create your own slow art movement, not as nostalgia, but as rebellion. Because meaning matters more than ever.
Slowing down doesn’t mean rejecting AI altogether.
Your art can be AI-assisted, AI-collaborative, or even AI-generated, if it’s done with intention. That’s the key. There needs to be a reason behind the work. Something more than convenience. Something richer than novelty.
Like my dream journal series where fragmented subconscious journal entries meet the chaos of the digital ether. It’s messy. It’s weird. It’s… oddly human. I’m taking what floats up from my mind at night and blending it with algorithmic randomness. It feels like a new kind of consciousness. One foot in the dream world, the other in the machine.
Love it or fear it, AI is here, and it’s here to stay. We could turn a blind eye, protest in the streets… Or we could do what artists do best: Play. Explore. Invent. Subvert.
So why do artists still matter?
- Because we tell the story. AI can remix, but it doesn’t live the tale.
- Because authenticity is a superpower. People want human.
- Because we connect the dots between culture, memory, tradition, and tomorrow.
Whether you’re hand-drawing op art patterns or working with AI to build dreamy new universes, the artist’s role is the same: make meaning.
What gets better with age?
AI does. Artists do. And maybe—so does the space between the two.
So don’t rush. Don’t compete. Create.
Show your process. Tell your story. Slow down to go deep. Because depth? That’s the one thing AI can never fake
Kids Book Illustrator Andy C Marshall 