about

Milwaukee-based artist and UW-Milwaukee MFA graduate Jack Lehtinen grew up immersed in the rise of smart devices and digital culture, an experience that shaped his ongoing curiosity about the cultural and interpersonal impacts of contemporary technologies. Lehtinen’s thesis work integrates AI research with art practice, exploring a complex and evolving relationship with these tools, made more complicated by the companies and politics driving AI proliferation. Lehtinen formalizes this research through an exploration of pattern, error, and material resistance. Using a wall-mounted plotter machine, coded to print binary patterns onto heavily textured handmade paper, he examines the tension between machine precision and the disruptions that arise when technology encounters unpredictable physical conditions. Lehtinen creates layered dialogues around automation, authorship, and other challenges embedded in emerging technologies. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at the Krasl Art Center (St. Joseph, MI), the Indianapolis Art Center (Indianapolis, IN), and the Trout Museum of Art (Appleton, WI), among others.