Manon Biernacki

Putting the AI in painting...

I wasn’t going to write this. I’ve been compiling a load of proof that a big name in comics has been using AI extensively in the last couple of years and denying it. That’s what I was going to write about. Then, Instagram kept pushing this artist’s account at me…

Well, it worked! I started following her immediately. The artist’s name is Manon Biernacki, satisfyingly shortened to ‘Manocki’ online. She currently has over 150k followers and you can see why. I love this image, the colours, the composition the surreal subject. It’s beautiful! So, naturally, I scrolled back to look at their other work… This is when the all too familiar AI alarm bells started jingling.

How could the artist that drew this just two years ago, start producing work like the above?

The gulf in quality and skill between these images is pretty remarkable. However it is not impossible. Especially given the unique ‘opportunities’ of COVID-19 (Personally, I started a new hobby of eating a whole pack of Fig Newtons a day).

I was going to write a long post detailing all of my suspicions about her work, the examples of images that look super AI generated and how her work has improved alongside the updated to generative AI imagery… BUT instead, I’m going to be blunt. Manon Biernacki has 100% used AI to generate her work and I can 100% prove it.

Midjourney

THIS is her Midjourney profile (account required to view) and this is 100% that generate AI image that I fell in love with on her Instagram page. NO question about it.

***EDIT**
It seems that she has hidden all but two of her Midjourney images on this page. I’m guessing that she’s been made aware that I found it. Fortunately, I have every single one of them saved and all of the image URLs still work. I will post them at the end of this article.

And here’s another iteration of the above image

If for any reason you don’t believe me, then just follow these links:

https://cdn.midjourney.com/533fcc61-54fa-46bc-b37d-aa4a60e85722/0_0.png
https://cdn.midjourney.com/9cfe3873-0d28-4226-9b91-082a5e4230e0/0_0.png

You don’t need to have an active Midjourney account to view these as they are permanently stored on their servers but you can see from the URL where they are hosted.

And it isn’t just this one image, there are a WHOLE buttload of Midjourney images that Manon has generated and then claimed she made.

NOW there is one important thing here, Manon sells original paintings on her shop and she shows her process on her Instagram page, and she does actually trace and paint them for real! BUT she is not coming up with the designs, the concepts or the color palettes. That is aaallll Midjourney.

And Manocki makes a living doing this. Take this (sold) painting

Do you think the person that bought it wanted to because they saw an inspirational piece of art, creative by a talented human being? I’m guessing so. Do you think the same person would want to buy an image generated by the prompt:

”wide cinematographic shot of a black person with a plant, dark skin people on golden hour, mask of plants on the face, in the style of martine johanna, fragmented bodies, aggressive digital illustration, pipilotti rist, lit by the sun, Light breakthrough, chiaroscuro lighting, bold colors, colorful, orange or red background”

Because, I doubt it!

Her whole Midjouney page is filled with images that she claims she has created and then put up for sale.

You can even see the AI generated ‘signature’ in this version

Not only that but she has a CRAZY number of followers on Instagram (currently more than 150k) built entirely off of the back of this scheme. Not only that but she just landed a HUGE gig, for Spotify, painting portraits of 11 influential female Hip-Hop stars for a solo exhibition in NYC!!

It is crazy how well this grift is working out for her. You can even see a bunch of explorations she did for this project on her Midjourney page

I imagine she has more accounts than this one and is using more than just midjourney for her ‘work’.

Process

Here’s a direct example of her ‘process’

Step 1

Generate a cool but complete AI image, complete with cursed hands

Step 2

Refine the image, still purely in AI

Step 3

Paint said image onto a canvas!

Step 4

Profit!

Ok, so this original painting only sold for $400 which is not great BUT since she painted this her following and cultural capital has shot through the roof.

She followed the same steps with this:

And sold it for a whopping $10k!

I also found this statement on her agent’s website

“She only uses AI generated and AI assisted images for reference purposes”. Maybe they believe that. Heck, maybe SHE believes that! But looking back when they signed her even they said something different…

Just googling this phrase brought up multiple results of this being a tagline for her work

This is not a normal thing artists need to say! And the fact that she (or her agent) aren’t saying it any more is depressing.

To be clear, I don’t think anyone buying Manon’s paintings are doing so thinking she’s tracing AI generated imagery and maybe she’s convinced herself that, buy successfully copying the AI source image, she IS creating everything. But there are incredible, talented artists out there who would KILL to get $10k for an original painting, or get a solo show in NYC with Spotify and Manon’s deception is stopping them from being seen.

In fact, she’s even stolen work DIRECTLY from other artists!

Manon’s work

Steven Gindler’s original photo (https://www.instagram.com/cvatik)

Manocki’s ‘cars’ on her agency folio

Elina Mushinskaya, the original artist

I’ve documented this over on Twitter and she has since taken down the site with these images (although her agency site still has them) you can see a section of that thread here:

https://x.com/PICKLE_MAGE/status/1809909766258368642

The fact is, the artist who was making NFTs like this in 2022 wouldn’t be selling $10k paintings 2 years later without the crutch of AI…

Yeesh

It’s a grift and the only person who benefits is the ‘artist’ who needs an AI algorithm to create anything interesting.

URLS

Here are a load of direct links to the images Manon has generated with Midjourney and in many cases, passed off as her own creations. You may need to manually copy>paste them as creating links in Substack takes a while. These are all hidden on her profile now, but they are all still there if you have the links, which I do.

https://cdn.midjourney.com/533fcc61-54fa-46bc-b37d-aa4a60e85722/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/9cfe3873-0d28-4226-9b91-082a5e4230e0/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/06fcf7ae-6e04-4f93-bdad-47ab848ac3d1/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/6e1dcde3-e5d4-4152-a95e-3bb843606f8f/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/0e9b22b4-487f-47bc-a664-adfec882ecd6/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/abf2b4fc-58e2-45a0-a520-3f5ba76610a9/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/b200588b-3430-4c7f-86e2-e29f9fbb01e2/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/88d1e5c0-c015-4459-9c00-baed230dae16/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/b8fbed87-814a-4466-aa93-593e7d4f36d8/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/4b3f6c23-fca6-4287-9069-fd94fd59216c/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/38156263-5c95-4cff-b6dd-2a170d33ed04/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/26d7ccb3-960f-4b2e-bc93-abbf0ad12d2f/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/333ff517-a243-499d-a1d8-c75723bb2eb9/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/33e841c1-f42a-45a7-9883-e688298f85e3/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/f573f439-13f9-4b63-9921-36734acb9279/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/b94259e5-a1f3-4dd5-b954-6e6cb047e37d/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/6c511545-92a9-43fe-bd93-52066dcb453d/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/b278ff5a-7153-4d47-86e8-855256940c11/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/36613303-11a6-4c80-b3b2-02652abdad93/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/99116b77-b2b5-4038-8a83-cd4582babef7/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/868418d1-dd13-417e-b4ce-9af4338b6c1c/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/0d4efbf1-3e6e-4c56-86be-4a1736916d64/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/fef6258f-b4ac-477e-9b2e-a716969a5b57/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/98983a39-78ef-464b-82e7-a9c9b6053812/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/6da7e13f-4daa-4b0c-a922-91940e300914/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/d29f0a4b-9564-4495-b3b8-d5d4c9cd2d34/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/babba732-71ee-4498-9bea-1f0e418e7428/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/36bf0e10-e398-4b93-b463-6565b44a3c59/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/531c6704-a501-4dca-a23f-58efc96b9625/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/e960f0a6-b96f-4234-b6fa-2e2e04030109/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/2832ad75-a685-47ef-815d-b41f7398201e/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/46b95e5d-09aa-4317-86a5-5b6ee2adba64/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/a2132c35-4617-4b88-ae31-c44761653dd9/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/f485cb4c-74bf-4389-8b01-93258091b18a/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/68d44d90-fba1-4683-bb6a-685b163db7f7/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/b200588b-3430-4c7f-86e2-e29f9fbb01e2/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/88d1e5c0-c015-4459-9c00-baed230dae16/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/0e9b22b4-487f-47bc-a664-adfec882ecd6/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/abf2b4fc-58e2-45a0-a520-3f5ba76610a9/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/40192658-f197-4a08-aa89-d30c4262a588/0_0.png

https://cdn.midjourney.com/ba7d986d-b194-47e2-b4de-37e8b2099e08/0_0.png

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https://cdn.midjourney.com/06fcf7ae-6e04-4f93-bdad-47ab848ac3d1/0_0.png