Generative Artists You Should Know

Vera Molnár (1924–2023)

One of the founding figures of computer art. A Hungarian-French artist, Molnár began using algorithms in the late 1960s, initially on paper before gaining access to a computer. She explored repetition, deviation, and systematic variation of geometric forms, asking what happens when you introduce controlled randomness into rigid order.

"The computer helps me to realise what my hand could not do."

Her plotter drawings — grids of squares rotated by small random increments — look deceptively simple but reveal an extraordinary sensitivity to visual rhythm.

Frieder Nake (b. 1938)

A German mathematician and computer art pioneer, Nake was one of the first three people to exhibit computer-generated art publicly, in Stuttgart in 1965. He developed programs to produce algorithmic line drawings, rooted in information theory and semiotics.

His work raised foundational questions: is the programmer the artist? Is the computer a medium or a collaborator?

Manfred Mohr (b. 1938)

Starting as a jazz musician, Mohr turned to computer art in the late 1960s. He has spent decades working with the hypercube (tesseract) as a structural idea — systematically exploring all 4D and higher-dimensional rotations and projections.

His output is rigorous, austere, and mathematically beautiful. He is among the most consistent conceptual generative artists in the world.

Harold Cohen (1928–2016)

A British artist who created AARON — a rule-based autonomous drawing program he developed from 1973 onwards. Cohen and AARON co-created tens of thousands of works over four decades, constantly evolving the program's knowledge of figures, plants, and colour.

AARON is widely considered the first long-term AI art project.

Roman Verostko (1929–2024)

An American artist who began making algorithmic art in the 1980s using custom software to drive pen plotters. His work draws on medieval manuscript illumination and Eastern calligraphy, blending spiritual form-making with mathematical process.

He coined the term algorist for artists who write their own algorithms as their primary artistic practice.

Casey Reas (b. 1972)

Co-creator of Processing — the open-source creative coding environment that has introduced millions of programmers and artists to generative art. Reas's own art practice centres on software processes that explore emergence, biology, and systems thinking.

Processing (and its JavaScript variant p5.js) remains the entry point for most people coming to generative art today.

Jared Tarbell (b. 1973)

An American developer and artist known for highly organic algorithmic works. His piece Substrate — lines that grow along imaginary crystalline planes — became an iconic example of emergent generative form. His site complexification.net was widely influential in the mid-2000s Processing community.

Tyler Hobbs (b. 1987)

A contemporary American artist who works primarily with flow fields and Perlin noise to produce pieces that feel deeply organic — like ink diffusing through wet paper, or mineral deposits forming in rock. His long-form generative series Fidenza (2021, on Art Blocks) became one of the landmark works of the NFT/generative art era.

Studio Moniker

A Dutch design studio that blurs the line between interaction design and generative art. Known for work that responds to collective participation and internet behaviour, treating randomness and user input as material.

Matt DesLauriers (b. 1990)

A Canadian generative artist and creative technologist whose work — particularly his Meridian and Subscapes series — demonstrates exceptional craft with canvas-based tooling and long-form generative algorithms. A major figure in the Art Blocks ecosystem.