Peter Smyth’s work is centered around the convergence of Digital Art & Painting, their ontological differences and their collaborative potential. With a process that merges his interests in nature, technology, and art, Smyth begins with computer-generated renderings, which then serve as creative stimuli for his paintings.

He draws inspiration from the natural world, referencing facets of various ecosystems in his models—from leaves and petals to hyphal tips. The paintings explore the parallels that Smyth sees between the digital process and painting, and that of plant life and its relationship with fungi and the wider ecological landscape.

The unseen processes under the earth, or on the computer are catalytic in what is shown above ground or on the canvas.His work often uses plants which specialize in sophisticated adaptation as a point of departure, such as Voyria, a parasitic plant which hacks the ‘wood wide web’ in a mutualistic or symbiotic relationship.

The plasticity of the forms within his works and the material of plastic applied during the rendering process is in reference to another special plant in the Boquila Trifoliota. This particular plant mimics others in its surroundings, almost seeing its environment, even morphing its leaves into those of its plastic neighbors.

Through trial and error, he sifts through renders, zooming and cropping them, which are in turn interpreted into meticulously painted hard edge works on canvas. There is a focus on the expenditure of time in the work, the contrast between rendering time, to the painterly execution.