Roope Rainisto

Roope Rainisto (born 1979) is a Finnish artist, designer, and photographer based in Helsinki, known for his pioneering work in AI-generated art. 

A lifelong photographer – he received his first camera at age 13 – Rainisto has pursued creative expression across mediums, from writing and music to filmmaking​. This diverse creative background, coupled with his design career, instilled in him a strong foundation in storytelling and problem-solving that now informs his art​.

In the early 2020s, Rainisto began experimenting with generative AI as an extension of his photography practice. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, unable to travel, he turned to AI “virtual cameras” – using image-generation tools to explore imagined scenes just as he would explore the real world with a camera​.

Around 2021 he started self-teaching AI art techniques, progressing through early algorithms to modern tools like DALL·E and Stable Diffusion​. An early milestone was winning Claire Silver’s second AI Art contest in 2022(with his video piece “Temporary”), which brought him to the attention of the AI art community​.

Rainisto’s breakthrough came with Life in West America (2023), a collection of AI-generated “post-photography” that presents a surreal yet familiar vision of the American West. Released on the BrainDrops platform in February 2023, the 500-piece series sold out within one minute of launch​ and has since become one of the highest-valued AI NFT art collections.