About
Steve Meyfroidt is an artist who draws with software he writes himself. A scientist and technologist by background, he went back to university to study drawing.
Some of his drawings are made by hand and some by a pen plotter running his code. Many are a mix of the two. He also uses the plotter to scratch lines into aluminium plates, which he prints as drypoints on his own etching press. He finishes some pieces by hand with paint, or with gold or silver leaf.
His subjects have included quantum physics, the early universe, climate data and facial recognition. He works by experiment. He writes a program, looks at what it draws and changes it, sometimes for months.
More and more of his recent work is made with musicians. He built MarkSynth, a drawing instrument that listens to them play and uses a camera to watch them move. He plays it live with them in a project called Performance Fingerprints, which premiered at The MAC, Belfast in March 2026 and was performed at Cork Midsummer Festival in June.
Exhibitions/Performances
2026
- Fingerprints performances with Ioana Petcu-Colan/Lina Andonovska/Alex Petcu/Ross Lyness/Davide Marinelli, Cork Midsummer Festival, Triskel Christchurch, Cork, Ireland, June 2026
- Fingerprints performances with musicians Ioana Petcu-Colan/Ross Lyness/Alex Petcu/Lina Andonovska/Amy Prendergast, The MAC, Belfast, Northern Ireland, March 2026
2025
- Shortlisted, art-science competition, Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, University College London, Summer 2025
2024
- Ciao Venezia, INTRO gallery, Carlisle, UK, December 2024
- Scotland Road to Venice, 24 Art Gallery, Leith, Edinburgh, June 2024
- Venice Biennale, Palazzo Bembo, Venice, April–November 2024
- A Press of Printmakers, Gallery 4a, Penrith, Cumbria, UK, April 2024
2023
- Proseed Gallery: Exhibit A, Group exhibition, Laidlaw Auction House, Carlisle, UK, October 2023
- Explorations in Drawing, Painting, Mixed Media and Technology, July 2023. Online group exhibition on the ArtSteps platform.
- Material Process Group exhibition, Kendal Museum, Kendal, UK, June 2023
- The Old and the New at Gallery 4A, Penrith, Cumbria, UK
2022
- Hadrian’s Wall 1900 print exhibition, Florence Arts Centre, Egremont, Cumbria, UK
- Hadrian’s Wall 1900 print exhibition, Northern Print, Newcastle, UK
- Fruitful, Florence Arts Centre, Egremont, Cumbria, UK
2021
- ReFORM, North Cumbria Crit Group show, Florence Arts Centre, Egremont, Cumbria, UK
Collaborations, talks, events
2026
- Visual Music residency, Dyski, Cornwall, UK, led by Lea Fabrikant and Tarik Barri, April 2026
- Artist talk for the Open College of the Arts on Performance Fingerprints, online, April 2026
2025
- Talk: Drawing, Music and Collaboration, delivered to the Open College of the Arts Europe Group, online
- Cork School of Music, Performance Fingerprints, with Ioana Petcu-Colan, Ross Lyness, Alex Petcu, Lina Andonovska, Amy Prendergast, transdisciplinary research weekend
- Featured in Summer 2025 EDGE Zine, Open College of the Arts
- Digital Arts Studios, Belfast, Performance Fingerprints, with Ioana Petcu-Colan, Ross Lyness
2023
- Generative art collaboration with the Shonai Jazz Trio, Kolkata, India. Exhibition and album cover
2022
- Generative art collaboration, the Gestural app for macOS, with students from the Open College of the Arts, Europe
2021
- Talk: What is Digital Art?, Florence Arts Centre, Egremont, Cumbria, UK
- Evolution collaboration with Kym Walker, poet, for exhibition at Florence Arts Centre, Egremont, Cumbria, UK