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Dlela Lombard
Dlela Lombard

WIZARD MASK
Rare Digital Art
through photo-editing, my
pre-AI-gen artist process
and discovery (2016-2020)
TIF / 55 x 41,36 cm at 300 dpi
Photoshop CS6 13.0 older vs.


I am a largely self-taught visionary photographer and digital artist based in Germany, working across photography, drawing, painting, digital processes and AI-assisted image making. My practice explores perception, transformation, and the space between conscious, unconscious and collective imagination.

My process developed from analogue photography and darkroom practice into digital experimentation. Since 2000 I have worked with digital imagery, and from 2016–2020 I developed an intuitive, entirely human-made generative process using deliberately blurred photographs of nature as raw material. In Photoshop, I transformed seemingly formless pixels through distortion, layering, fragmentation, accumulation and spontaneous gestures until unfamiliar organic forms emerged. I treated pixels almost as physical matter—sculpting rather than simply editing an image.

This pre-AI practice, exemplified by Wizard Mask, became a personal visual language based on imagination, intuition, chance and transformation; it emerged through an ongoing dialogue between perception and experimentation because I believed that it was possible.Without this process I would have not continued in the new medium because my foundation is photography and only through editing I could find a way into the new medium.With 2 other examples it was once proposed in 2020 to Lumen Prize in the UK for editing skills in software however didn't make it into the finalist group.I never applied again.Why not mention this ? Meanwhile I am taking things easy.


Since 2023, I have incorporated AI-assisted image generation as another instrument within this process. I approach AI less as an automated image-maker than as a contemporary extension of the camera: a tool for chance, speed, transformation and discovery. Since late 2024 I often begin with my own material and selectively develop it through prompting, up-scaling and editing.My approach is now deliberately less-is-more. Rather than endless generation, I value intention, selection, sustained observation and the transformation of existing material. Across both my pre-AI and AI-assisted work, the central principle remains the same: creating conditions in which something unexpected can emerge, maybe open to other interpretations, associations, and ways of seeing.

AI did not create my artistic method — it became a later tool within an already-developed generative practice. For me, creating, continuously developing my skills, and maintaining a consistent practice are essential to staying passionate—not only about my work, but also about life itself.


After a decade devoted to analogue photography, I experienced a radical personal transformation around the age of thirty. What began as an identity crisis and a search for healing gradually became a process of integration and renewal. This experience continues to inform the foundation of my artistic practice.My father, a filmmaker and screenwriter and my mother, oppressed yet occasionally luminous—I learned early that resilience could become a way of life, and renewal a quiet instinct.I was born in Germany into the sixties.

My background includes a diploma : analogue photography with one year basic private photo-school, black-and-white darkroom printing, film production stills, fashion photographer's assistance and commercial photography in Munich for 2 years.My university degree is self-taught and through the years I worked in various jobs too.I later then focused on book-cover imagery, crime and thriller aesthetics, self-scouted models and explorations of the collective unconscious through a photo-library, the years I became interested in the new medium.My work has been exhibited, published and presented internationally, including through Henry Boxer Gallery in London, Shrine’s The Empty Gallery in New York, the Computer Arts Society, Zoom International Magazine in Italy, and wise.art NFT platform in Geneva where giving my art for philanthropy is a temporary, relatively new dimension of my practice.

I have noticed that envy is one of the emotions that can easily be amplified by social media. I am not entirely sure how much this dynamic affected me personally, as I have always been highly creative and able to transcend my circumstances, I still may suffer pitfalls - sometimes.

Occasionally, I use AI as a drafting tool because German is my native language, and writing in English is not my strongest skill. However, I always review and rewrite the output in my own voice.

WIZARD MASK Rare Digital Art through photo-editing, my pre-AI-gen artist process and discovery (2016-2020) TIF / 55 x 41,36 cm at 300 dpi Photoshop CS6 13.0 older vs. I am a largely self-taught visionary photographer and digital artist based in Germany, working across photography, drawing, painting, digital processes and AI-assisted image making. My practice explores perception, transformation, and the space between conscious, unconscious and collective imagination. My process developed from analogue photography and darkroom practice into digital experimentation. Since 2000 I have worked with digital imagery, and from 2016–2020 I developed an intuitive, entirely human-made generative process using deliberately blurred photographs of nature as raw material. In Photoshop, I transformed seemingly formless pixels through distortion, layering, fragmentation, accumulation and spontaneous gestures until unfamiliar organic forms emerged. I treated pixels almost as physical matter—sculpting rather than simply editing an image. This pre-AI practice, exemplified by Wizard Mask, became a personal visual language based on imagination, intuition, chance and transformation; it emerged through an ongoing dialogue between perception and experimentation because I believed that it was possible.Without this process I would have not continued in the new medium because my foundation is photography and only through editing I could find a way into the new medium.With 2 other examples it was once proposed in 2020 to Lumen Prize in the UK for editing skills in software however didn't make it into the finalist group.I never applied again.Why not mention this ? Meanwhile I am taking things easy. Since 2023, I have incorporated AI-assisted image generation as another instrument within this process. I approach AI less as an automated image-maker than as a contemporary extension of the camera: a tool for chance, speed, transformation and discovery. Since late 2024 I often begin with my own material and selectively develop it through prompting, up-scaling and editing.My approach is now deliberately less-is-more. Rather than endless generation, I value intention, selection, sustained observation and the transformation of existing material. Across both my pre-AI and AI-assisted work, the central principle remains the same: creating conditions in which something unexpected can emerge, maybe open to other interpretations, associations, and ways of seeing. AI did not create my artistic method — it became a later tool within an already-developed generative practice. For me, creating, continuously developing my skills, and maintaining a consistent practice are essential to staying passionate—not only about my work, but also about life itself. After a decade devoted to analogue photography, I experienced a radical personal transformation around the age of thirty. What began as an identity crisis and a search for healing gradually became a process of integration and renewal. This experience continues to inform the foundation of my artistic practice.My father, a filmmaker and screenwriter and my mother, oppressed yet occasionally luminous—I learned early that resilience could become a way of life, and renewal a quiet instinct.I was born in Germany into the sixties. My background includes a diploma : analogue photography with one year basic private photo-school, black-and-white darkroom printing, film production stills, fashion photographer's assistance and commercial photography in Munich for 2 years.My university degree is self-taught and through the years I worked in various jobs too.I later then focused on book-cover imagery, crime and thriller aesthetics, self-scouted models and explorations of the collective unconscious through a photo-library, the years I became interested in the new medium.My work has been exhibited, published and presented internationally, including through Henry Boxer Gallery in London, Shrine’s The Empty Gallery in New York, the Computer Arts Society, Zoom International Magazine in Italy, and wise.art NFT platform in Geneva where giving my art for philanthropy is a temporary, relatively new dimension of my practice. I have noticed that envy is one of the emotions that can easily be amplified by social media. I am not entirely sure how much this dynamic affected me personally, as I have always been highly creative and able to transcend my circumstances, I still may suffer pitfalls - sometimes. Occasionally, I use AI as a drafting tool because German is my native language, and writing in English is not my strongest skill. However, I always review and rewrite the output in my own voice.