THE ARTIFICTIONAL

Cluster Photography & Print Exhibitor | AI Showcase | 2025

The Artifictional is the creative alias of Timea Paál (b. 1983), a Hungarian multidisciplinary artist based in Romania, specialising in generative AI and synthography. With a strong background in architecture and graphic design, she has always sought ways to merge creativity with technology, pushing artistic boundaries and reshaping visual expression.

Her work teeters on the fine line between reality and the surreal, creating compositions that are both unusual and oddly believable—inviting viewers to reconsider what they think they know. Every piece is built on a clear, central idea, with subjects, forms, and textures carefully chosen to reinforce that concept. Anything unnecessary is stripped away, keeping the composition clean, structured, and purposeful.

Multidisciplinary artist specialising in generative AI and synthography.

She draws inspiration from the mundane, finding unexpected connections between shapes and forms, playing with perceptual shifts and language-driven ideas—deconstructing words or taking idioms literally. Her work has a quirky quality, often twisting the familiar into something unexpected, inviting viewers to share in the intrigue of reinterpreting the ordinary.

“For each of my pieces, I navigate a well-defined line between the real and the surreal. I work within a carefully controlled aesthetic framework, aiming for clarity and intent to guide my compositions. My preference for a predominantly white palette, particularly in ambient elements, is deliberate; by minimising colour distractions, I emphasise form, texture, and structure, ensuring that each element serves the overall concept.

The Ethereal Gaze examines memory, metamorphosis, and the tension between movement and stillness. In this piece, an elderly woman, suspended mid-flight with dragonfly wings, exists in a liminal space—part human, part dream. Gravity loosens its hold, and time bends as she hovers between past and future, presence and absence.

Drawing from the symbolism of the dragonfly, a creature of transformation, the work contemplates cycles of change and renewal. The hypnotic spiral of motion suggests that even in stillness, something is always shifting. Through a fusion of playfulness and the uncanny, The Ethereal Gaze invites viewers to reconsider what it means to ascend, evolve, or exist in a state of transition.”

— The Artifictional

“Blurring the boundaries of age and form, the piece creates a quiet yet compelling sense of wonder—where the familiar gives way to the extraordinary.

There is often an underlying logic to my surreal compositions. At first glance, they may appear impossible, yet upon closer inspection, they could be captured in reality with a shift in perspective. Much like certain literary works where the surreal ultimately has a rational explanation, my images invite reinterpretation. The levitating woman in The Ethereal Gaze may seem to float towards the viewer, but with a perceptual shift, she could just as easily be standing and looking up, filmed from above. This tension between illusion and possibility runs through much of my work, allowing reality and the surreal to coexist.”

— The Artifictional