Joshua Davis, living and working in New York City, studied painting. In the nineties, he taught himself computer programming thus launching a career that has carried him towards an intense and intricate dialogue between man and machine. This dialogue takes place between the initial idea that the artist has in mind and his wish to allow the machine to generate variations of the image. It seems to be a contradiction, but is not. Davis allows the software to join his own image elements with those developed by the computer. The composition is then selected, edited, and finalized by the artist himself. Surprises the software might produce are explicitly welcome, as are unexpected coincidences. However, Davis influences and guides the process so that he as the creator always keeps his machines under control. Through this process of control and letting go Davis creates a new kind of “fresco” painting, multi-faceted compositions that are convincing as expressions of contemporary emotions of every day life.