Shiqing (Licia) He is a generative artist and a human-computer interaction researcher whose work explores fusion and conflict within identity and emotion.

Originally from China, Licia holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Studio Art and Computer Science. Though Licia’s undergraduate education focused on traditional printmaking, she gradually started working on generative art during her early years at the University of Michigan School of Information, where she gained her doctorate focused on the connections between art and technology.

Licia went on to develop the Sparkling Goodbye collection, which uses a generative painting algorithm to explore different emotional aspects of departure. From a distance, the images look like traditional oil paintings, but close up, the machine-generated edges and dots become clear. This interaction of analogue and digital art forms is a defining characteristic of the Sparkling Goodbye collection, which chaotically blends machine-picked representations of human emotions from happiness to sadness, serenity to anxiety.

Sparkling Goodbye was the first major algorithm developed after Licia transitioned to a full-time artist, capturing her excitement, disorientation, and retrospection during this tumultuous period in her life. Leaving a country she’d called home for more than a decade, in early 2023, Licia moved to London, where she continues to fulfill her dream of working as a full-time generative artist.  

“When I am creating generative art, I focus on the rules that I am making and breaking.” Licia He