50 Over 50: The Long Way Home - Miguel Ripoll's Post-Digital Practice

What Miguel Ripoll does is highly unusual. At 57, they've been developing for over 25 years a practice based on technology and traditional materials and techniques. They're working with AI-generated fragments from public domain archives, transforming them through hand-crafted digital collage, and then spending hours hand-drawing with ink and pencil on them. The friction between machine logic and human gesture never gets old.

It's not about age for them, but about patience. In 1999, when they were in their twenties, they exhibited at the Reina Sofía Museum, then disappeared for twenty years because the technology couldn't do what they envisioned. They spent those decades building the exact skillset they needed: coding, interface design, working with complex data systems. Now the tools have caught up. The work they're making now is what they dreamed of twenty-five years ago.

Sometimes you have to take the long way home.

What's actually hard about being an artist at this point? Nothing. They've already had a successful career as a commercial designer—worked for Yale, Princeton, Columbia, the Financial Times, advised governments, held executive office at major corporations, shaped tools used by millions. They're financially stable. They have no ego left to protect. They can make exactly what they want without compromise. The hardest part was waiting all these years, working in silence.

Someone just turned 50 and wants to start making art—what do they tell them? Do it. You've lived enough to have something to say. And honestly? They've exhibited more works in three months than van Gogh did in his entire lifetime, so the timeline is irrelevant. Just go on.

Do they try to keep up with what matters in the art world? They don't. They spent fifteen years in London, eight in Berlin, worked at the highest levels of design and tech. They've lectured at Columbia, served as juror alongside Nobel laureates. They know what quality looks like. The art world will catch up or it won't—that's not their problem. They're making work that needed to exist. So far, the response they're getting has been overwhelmingly positive, with international institutional exhibitions and solo museum shows already happening. It has all happened very quickly.

What do artists their age bring to the table that younger artists don't? Perspective. Patience. The ability to see patterns across decades. They started coding generative art in 1999, before "AI art" was even a term. They understand where this technology came from and where it's going. Plus, they've already proven themselves in another field. They have nothing left to prove, which means they can take real risks.

What are they working on next? More "Grand Tour" pieces, working every day, all day. They have this urge now that feels like an explosion. Plus, they have many institutional exhibitions lined up throughout 2026: Morocco, UAE, South Korea, London, Miami Art Week, Venice during the Biennale. Also exploring how physical mark-making resists the speed of algorithmic culture. Each drawing takes hundreds of hours. That slowness feels like activism.

What keeps them going when everything feels impossible? It doesn't feel impossible anymore. They waited twenty-five years for the right moment. This is it. The energy is boundless. They have plenty of it.

What do they wish they'd known when they were younger? That walking away was the right choice. They had great offers to exhibit everywhere, and they said no and walked away. They didn't know if they could ever come back, if the technology would develop in their lifetime enough to allow them to do what they wanted with it. Doing the research, trying for years to develop the tools they needed—they doubted that was the right choice. They could have taken the easy way, and made money and gotten attention with work which they were not happy with. They chose silence, and now they know that discipline and patience always pay off. That the art world's timeline is meaningless. Make the work. Everything else follows.

They're 57 and being called an "emerging artist" in contemporary art. It's absurd and perfect. Age is irrelevant. The work either matters or it doesn't. They've got the energy of a teenager and the wisdom of someone who's already lived three careers. They just want their work to be seen, after so many years of invisibility.

This is just the beginning.

Miguel Ripoll's post-digital practice explores the dialogue between humans and machines, as well as between past and present. Through hybrid processes that merge computational methods with slow, tactile techniques, they investigate how algorithmic systems intersect with cultural memory, perception, and artistic tradition.

Rather than using AI to generate finished images, they develop custom workflows that extract fragmentary visual and textual material from public-domain archives and code-based processes. These fragments then become raw material for iterative cycles of collage, digital manipulation, hand drawing, and layering across large-scale archival paper.

What emerges is not "machine art," but a critical response to it. By re-tracing and disrupting digital forms through physical intervention, they explore the tension between machine logic and human intuition, between reproducibility and singularity.

They began experimenting with human-machine dialogue in 1999. Their early algorithm-driven pieces were exhibited at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, and the Cervantes Institute. But when available tools proved inadequate for their vision, they decided to pause studio production to develop first the technological and conceptual frameworks necessary for more sophisticated computational engagement.

Over the following two decades, they became an internationally recognized expert in algorithmic interface design for complex information systems. They designed digital architectures for Yale, Princeton, Columbia, the Mellon Foundation, UC Berkeley, the Qatar Foundation, and the National Library of Morocco. They served as Global Director of Design Strategy at Vistaprint, where they helped shape creative tools used by millions worldwide.

They studied History of Art and Musicology in Italy, graduated summa cum laude with Special Distinction from Goldsmiths, and researched for an MPhil at UCL. Fluent in five natural and four programming languages, they've written essays on digital aesthetics and technology, translated major literary works for Spanish publisher Anagrama, curated and designed exhibitions across Europe and the Middle East, and served as juror alongside Nobel laureates.

Their return to full-time art-making in 2023 marked the culmination of decades of research integrated into a new visual language. Selected for the European Union's Creative Europe NAT PMP Program, their work is now being presented across multiple countries.

At 57, they're working every day, all day. They have this urge now that feels like an explosion. Each drawing takes hundreds of hours. That slowness feels like activism.

They waited twenty-five years for the right moment. This is it.

Discipline and patience always pay off. The art world's timeline is meaningless. Make the work. Everything else follows.

Connect with Miguel: Website: miguelripoll.art Instagram: @studio.miguel.ripoll