The Disturbing Trend That's Taking The Art World By Storm

A customer comes into the gallery and carefully unrolls her newly commissioned canvas onto our design table for framing. She handles it with such care that I quickly understand this piece means a great deal to her. The paint is still tacky from the heavy varnish the artist used, but we manage to get it safely unrolled and weighted for observation.

At first glance, I recognize that this is a painting from her wedding day. Her beautiful lace dress is rendered expertly, and I'm immediately impressed with the photorealism of the piece. The excessive varnish seems like a little much but I don't think much of it and begin pulling a sleek satin mat board and an elegant white frame with subtle beading to complement the lace of her dress. The look in my customer's eyes tells me I’ve nailed the design, I smile and proceed with measuring and comparing glass options.

While measuring the canvas, I start to notice an unusual vinyl texture and the way the oil paint scatters into little honeycomb patterns in some areas. I think about what a nightmare it must have been to paint on such a non-absorbent surface. My customer continues to proudly talk about the piece, sharing details about the commission process and even revealing the hefty price tag of such a realistic painting. While she relives her wedding memories, I consider whether a non-glare glass might help reduce the overwhelming shine caused by the unnecessary slather of thick varnish.

I crouch down, moving from side to side to see how the varnish reacts to my overhead lights—when suddenly, something catches my eye. I let out an unintentional but very audible gasp.

My customer stops talking. I know she heard it. I can feel the heat of her stare as I remain at eye level with the canvas. I’m suddenly faced with a difficult choice: Do I tell her what I’ve just discovered and risk ruining her wedding portrait ? Or do I pretend I simply inhaled too many varnish fumes and let her believe her thousand-dollar painting is what she thinks it is?

If you’ve been paying attention to the art world in the past year, you may have already guessed what I discovered: this painting was created by AI. It was printed and then painted over to appear authentic. What gave it away? A glaring anatomical mistake—the left hand was painted onto her right arm. Upon closer inspection, we also found well-hidden print lines, and that the heavy varnish had been intentionally applied to mimic brushstrokes. The artist had even primed the back of the canvas to conceal the AI-generated image that would have been visible from the backside in the right light.

...and in case you’re wondering, yes, I did show my customer that her thumb was on the wrong side of her hand. This led to an extended conversation about the challenges AI presents to the art world. Like her, many people have no idea of the frequency this is happening.

In fact, over the past year, more AI-generated pieces have made it past the jury process in our gallery group art shows and through our gallery doors than I’d like to admit. What’s even more concerning is that recent advancements in AI-generated artwork have made these pieces increasingly difficult to detect—even in person and with a well trained eye and a background in digital art.

These pieces are often labeled as "mixed media" or even "oil on canvas" without curators or jurors suspecting otherwise. Some are even displayed alongside works by respected artists, winning original art awards and being purchased by collectors across the U.S. The rate at which this is happening is alarming, and I don’t think many galleries or art buyers truly understand what’s going on and how the integrity of our art world is being affected.

This article is meant to help people identify AI-generated art—specifically the kind that is being passed off as "original" work.

For context, I am both an artist in fine art and digital art. I regularly use Photoshop and AI software in marketing and other creative projects. I'd like to be clear that the AI art I’m discussing here is not this kind of digital art, Photoshop manipulations, or AI-generated art that is openly marketed as such. For clarity, I am specifically referring to AI-generated pieces that are being disguised as original, traditionally created artwork and making their way into respected exhibitions and galleries across the US. Not AI art specific art shows or AI artists that are transparent about their process.

With that in mind, let’s dive into some ways you can spot AI-generated art—whether you’re an artist, an art collector, involved in the art world, or just curious about what to look for.

1. Print Lines

   
   

We'll start with an easy-to-spot classic. Print lines. Though one of the easier to spot ones on our list, it's also one of the easiest to cover up or paint over. Most of the time, the answer is in the canvas itself. Original paintings are typically created on high quality canvases made of traditional woven fabrics such as cotton or linen while a polyester-blend type of canvas is used for printing and absorbing ink from an Inkjet printer. If you notice an "original" painting on a low quality or 'plasticky' feeling canvas, there's a chance that a print lies underneath.

2. Covered Backside

Have you ever picked up an original painting that was neatly hard backed with some type of board? Yeah, doesn't happen very often, does it? Many online print providers use mat board and a claw tooth hanger as a finishing method before shipping out their ordered prints. If you notice it, it might be worth taking a closer look into. Another method along these lines is when we discover a canvas backside that has been gessoed or painted over. This one is tricky, because it's also a method artist's use to prevent light from going "through" their artwork...but it's also one of the signs we look for when evaluating original art because print canvas tends to be more transparent, making the print more noticeable from the reverse side.

3. A Short or Nonexistent Artist Background

Sometimes, simply looking up an artist’s website and social media when you suspect a piece might be AI-generated can provide the answer you're looking for. Many of the AI-generated submissions we’ve encountered come from relatively new artists who seem to appear out of nowhere, suddenly flooding the art scene with a large volume of work in a short period of time. On the flip-side, another red flag to look out for is when an artist’s skill level jumps from mediocre to incredible seemingly overnight—something we, unfortunately, learned the hard way of this disturbing art trend.

Last year, we met a newer artist who was producing a large amount of artwork. Some of his pieces were mediocre replicas of well-known Thomas Kinkade paintings, but we recognized his passion for art and decided to accept one of his more authentic-looking pieces into an emerging artists’ group show. He continued submitting pieces for consideration in various exhibitions. Then, one day, we opened his latest submission and discovered that, in his own words, he had "discovered a knack for photorealism." . We were immediately impressed by this artists rate of improvement so so we decided invite him to show a few of his new hyper-realistic pieces into the next show.

Upon installing, I noticed that one of the paintings needed a new backing, so without much thought, I took it into the frame shop to replace the wire. That’s when I noticed something unusual—a tiny black line underneath the hard-backed canvas. Underneath that backing was the backside of a photograph altered with AI, and then painted over. When we confronted the artist, he began to defend his process and the "use of modern technology to create art people love".

4. Anatomically Incorrectness

Early AI-generated art was pretty easy to spot. All you had to do was pay close attention to the hands, feet, or teeth of the subject—most of the time, something just wasn’t quite right. My favorite example of this was when a photographer sent us an enormous photograph of a little boy who had an extra finger and an unusually wide tooth. At the time, we assumed it was intentional, so we proceeded with the framing, returning it to our client in a beautiful 3-inch gold leaf frame with museum glass.

As time went on, and more bizarre and unnatural images started popping up, we began to realize what was actually happening. Unfortunately, these subtle giveaways are no longer as easy to detect. However, we often find inconsistencies in the shadows or even the backgrounds of photographs and artwork that give it away.

5. Heavy Varnish or Epoxy

Sometimes we get artwork that is so heavily varnished that it's difficult to find a good place to hang it where our lights won't cast an unfavorable glare. And most of the time this is just part of the artist's finishing process and there's no need to raise any concern. In contrast, in some cases this is also a method an artist uses to mimic real brush strokes, Often times laying thick, inconsistent layers of lacquer over top an AI produced image that was touched up with some actual paint strokes in an attempt to camouflage and blend the two together.

6. The Groundbreaker

These are the hybrid players in the art world. They may have some artistic ability but choose to double down, branding themselves as "a bridge between technology and traditional art." These individuals are still relatively new to the art scene and are convinced they’ve discovered a groundbreaking method for creating art. This approach is also the most fiercely defended on this list.

These artists may create "process" videos or even post sketches of the early stages of their artwork, emphasizing AI’s transformative role in the art world—yet they still enter their pieces as "original artwork." They craft narratives about their backgrounds in technology while selling their work in art shows and gallery exhibitions to unsuspecting buyers. But in order to create these "groundbreaking" pieces, it's important to understand that underneath the painting, is still an AI print that has been manipulated to look real through some layering process.

And here’s the thing... if these "hybrids" were simply transparent about their process and spent less time trying to obscure AI’s role in their work, they might actually find their place in the art world. The issue arises when they label their pieces as "original" or "mixed-media" without acknowledging AI’s involvement. Let’s call a spade a spade: If AI-generated imagery is used at any stage of the artistic process, it must be disclosed as such.

I don’t care if the artist sketches the concept, runs it through AI software, prints it out, and then paints over it—this is still AI-assisted art, and it needs to be labeled accordingly.

Thank you for reading. We need to keep the conversation open about this emerging, yet disturbing art trend, in the art world. We’d love to hear your thoughts—have you personally encountered AI-generated art being mislabeled as an original piece?

To further add to this conversation, many of the images created in this article were made by AI. Did you recognize them?

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