Painting Outside The Algorithm: A Richard Diebenkorn Summer
Top: Chandler Road, Oil on canvas, 40×30”. 2025. Bottom: You Would Not Believe Your Eyes, Oil on canvas, 40×30”. 2025.
It’s hard to ignore the influence of algorithms on your creative process. They creep in, even when you think you’re not paying attention.
Some good advice I’ve always tried to follow goes back to around 2016, when I first became aware of a stat that said blue images performed best on the algorithm. This was the era when National Hot Dog Day, Cupcake Day, whatever-day filled the social media calendars. Social managers repeated things like this as gospel. And I can remember really disliking the idea that an algorithm could have such an oversized impression on what artists put out into the world. I decided then and there that I wasn’t going to create for the algorithm.
So I’ve always thought of my practice in two parts.
There’s your artist self — the part of you that’s all curiosity, the one that follows an idea whether or not it fits anyone else’s expectations (or an algorithm). And then there’s your professional self — the part that takes what the artist produces and figures out how to share it, market it, sell it, keep the lights on.
For most of my career I’ve felt like I did a good job keeping those two things separate. I prided myself on not worrying too much about the algorithm. There’s an audience for everyone, and often the pieces that flop online are the ones that spark the most genuine conversations in real life. So I gave myself permission to make the work I wanted to make, simply because it mattered to me.
Cut to a few months ago, when I started conceptualizing two new landscape paintings. And immediately thought: ugh, landscapes don’t do well on the algorithm anymore.
And the frustrating thing is, it’s true. Portrait-oriented images just do better on our phones. Ever since Instagram reshaped itself to mimic TikTok’s For You page, those first thirty people who see your post decide if it keeps going or not. Tilted odds, regardless of the work itself. So of course I felt myself dreading ambitious landscape paintings.
A Diebenkorn Summer
This hesitation hit harder because I’ve been having what I call a Diebenkorn summer. Richard Diebenkorn has always been an artist I’ve admired — in college, one of my closest studio mates loved him so much he painted a whole series of aerials in that style.
This summer I dug into a big museum book on Diebenkorn (yes, people actually read those books full of pictures and essays) and it gave me a fresh appreciation for his discipline, the way he worked and reworked surfaces, planes, and colors. I even learned a new word: “pentimenti,” which means to rework and resurface, while traces of an earlier element remain visible, something Diebenkorn did constantly. (It comes from the Italian word for “repentance”.) I found myself admiring that quality and trying it in my own practice.
©Richard Diebenkorn Seated Woman 1966 (MoMA)
So I had two canvases stretched and waiting. One night after gymnastics with my kids, I took a walk in my neighborhood and saw fireflies out in a field. Between that moment and the big open Texas sky, I knew exactly what I wanted to paint.
Making My Own Medium
I also wanted to use cold wax for its depth and sheen, but the art store was out. So I decided to make my own. Beeswax, solvent, a little linseed oil, trial and error. (If you’re in a space with poor ventilation, I recommend wearing a mask or if you have one, a respirator, while working with or creating your own cold wax medium.)
The two paintings ended up being highly labor-intensive, taking the better part of a month once you include planning and reworking. But the surface quality, the ability to scrape and rebuild, felt alive in a way that connected me back to what I’d just been reading about Diebenkorn.
Back to the Algorithm
And yet, in the middle of all that, the thought still hung around: will these even show up for anyone online?
That’s the funny contradiction of being a working artist right now. Part of my job is marketing, sure. But the deeper part of my practice can’t be defined by it.
So I painted them anyway.
Why Share This?
If you’ve made it this far, you’re not just scrolling. You’re a reader. And honestly, knowing that some of you prefer these long-form landscapes over algorithm-friendly reels or portraits is part of what pushed me to paint them anyway.
There’s freedom in making art that might not perform. There’s freedom in breaking your own rules of what “real” art should be. And there’s a kind of satisfaction in chasing something with very little external reinforcement. That satisfaction is the reward.