Ken Mar

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA

Artist statement

My work is inspired by the idea that our reality may be a computer simulation. The paintings are meditations on a fundamental question: Is this real? The unlikely coincidences in life make it feel like a constructed narrative. I find myself existing during a very strange time. In the history of the universe, if it will be possible to create virtual realities that are indistinguishable from actual reality, how do we know it hasn’t already happened? If these simulations exist there would be a vast and countless number of them. The likelihood of finding ourselves in the original base reality would be vanishingly small. — "Suddenly he woke up and there he was... But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming it was Zhuangzi." – Zhuangzi, Taoist philosopher, 4th century BC

Artwork