XIM IZQUIERDO
WE LOVE WOMEN
ALL IMAGES CREATED BY XIM IZQUIERDO
“Reflections of the Inner” explores the delicate dialogue between mirrors, fragmentation, and the hidden landscapes of the spirit.
Fragments of broken glass and reflective surfaces create a quiet tension between what is visible and what lingers just beyond perception, offering fleeting glimpses into a world where reality blurs into abstraction.
Soft silhouettes, muted tones, and textured shadows emerge like memories across fractured reflections—shapes that appear, shimmer, and disappear. Light becomes a sculptural element, bending around absence and presence, weaving together a dreamlike atmosphere that invites the viewer to slow down and sense, rather than define.
At its core, “Reflections of the Inner” is a meditation on perception and presence, an invitation to move beyond the surface and step into the silent, shifting territories of the unseen.
— Xim Izquierdo
Xim Izquierdo began playing around with generative artificial intelligence in 2023, soon after the technology became available to the public. Xim was then a full-time photographer, curious to explore the universe of AI. “I’d jump into the water with no plan and just experiment,” he recalls. But when his pastime led to a work commission, Xim realized that AI offered real opportunities. He opened a new Instagram account exclusively for AI art and set out to develop his craft.
In a field soon saturated with hyperreal irrealities, Xim’s refreshingly conceptual and visually analogical approach to AI design caught the eye of Rosa Esteva. In early 2025, Rosa and Xim began a collaboration that considered a union between fashion and AI as an open-ended question, an exercise of pure creative research.
“At the time I was toying with mirrors,” says Xim. It was something Rosa was also interested in: “the idea of reflections and apparitions, of looking at yourself, at who you are.” From there, Xim began deconstructing Cortana in textures, focusing on its signature semi-sheer silk tulle. Out of this game of transparencies and mirrors came “Reflections of the Inner,” a series of AI-generated images that combine Cortana’s essence, Xim’s artistry, and the trace of artificial intelligence. The photographs interrogate the visible. Broken reflections and translucent abstractions unfold in a mysterious other somewhere within, or just outside of view. They hint at a veiled reality not unlike AI itself.
By now, Xim knows well how AI behaves and has, in turn, taught his software to work within his creative universe. “I have instructed it to produce a look and a feel that’s very 35-millimeter, pure and authentic photography. I’m trying to distance myself from, with all due respect, that type of AI that’s so plasticized and evident.” Xim’s process begins by spilling out an idea into the language AI ChatGPT, which they then develop together in conversation. “It knows me,” Xim explains, “you could say I’ve trained it. It knows what language I speak, what moves me.” Next, Xim asks ChatGPT to generate written prompts for a second program, Midjourney, to turn into images. He will go on to modify these prompts over and over. “There is a giant factor of trial and error,” Xim says. “It’s a lot about testing, testing, testing.”
To Xim, AI is a tool, a companion. “I’m not taking away from the value of having an idea come up in your mind, writing it down, and developing it. But now, with the help of this technology, you can go faster, and reach deeper, towards wilder possibilities.”
“There is always a creative mind behind AI,” says Xim of AI’s freestanding creative capacity, at least for now. “It’s as if someone gives you a camera. In the end, it is you who takes the shot. It is you who has the eye that not everyone has.” He continues: “Your culture, your references are all important. I’m always giving [AI] references to photographers.”
Xim’s alternate life as an AI artist is today very much a reality. Last year, he won the first-place award for AI Image Designer at the international AI Image Design Awards. Of course, Xim is also wary of AI, especially given how fast it continues to evolve. But he remains open-minded and curious. “As a photographer, I could say: this will ruin me, this will sink my photography. But instead of going against this giant wave that isn’t going to stop, I decided to sail with it and say: I’ll try, and we’ll see what happens.”