Köln, Germany

Hannes Hummel’s artistic practice examines and reinterprets nature through a digital lens. Not content to merely represent the natural world, Hummel instead reimagines and recombines elements of natural structures–including flowers, insects, and the human form–in order to create an entirely new lexicon of hypothetical varieties. In a maneuver that would surely please the Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, who populated his stories with imaginary literary works of his own invention, Hummel uses hyperrealist digital techniques to render imaginary hybrid flowers and natural structures, creating a library of virtual strains with a scientific attention to detail. Hummel creates this fictional taxonomy using both traditional methods and a variety of digital tools, including generative AI, which is especially evident in his animated works. A multidisciplinary creator with ties to both the cutting edge world of digital fine art and to the worlds of fashion and tech, Hummel’s work has featured everywhere from the Beijing Contemporary Art Expo to New York Fashion Week.