Jos Vromans

Artist

Jos Vromans · josvromans.com ↗

Raster

raster.art/artist/jos-vromans ↗

Based

Dutch artist, born 1987

Practice

Hand-coded algorithmic art grounded in mathematics, geometry, iteration, and controlled randomness

In the set

Attraction ↗ · 444 editions

Links

Full bibliography ↗

Jos Vromans approaches code as both medium and method. Trained in applied mathematics at Fontys University in Tilburg, he first encountered the creative potential of rule-based systems while implementing a genetic algorithm. He subsequently worked as a backend web developer before committing himself to browser-based generative art.¹ This path matters because his images are not illustrations of mathematics made after the fact. They arise directly from mathematical procedures, programmed relationships, and repeated computational decisions.

Vromans describes his practice as a process of writing tools from scratch, implementing an idea, and then altering its parameters or logic in search of unforeseen variations.² Iteration consequently operates at two levels: within each algorithm, where elementary operations accumulate into intricate structures, and within the studio process, where the artist repeatedly revises the system. Surprise is not treated as a failure of control. It is evidence that a concise rule set can exceed immediate human prediction.

From mathematical rule to visual field

Early works established Vromans's interest in recursive geometry and optical transformation. At the 2019 Bridges Conference in Linz, his work appeared within an international exhibition devoted to connections between mathematics, art, and culture.³ A contemporary account singled out The Root Two Tunnel, describing an image generated with custom software by manipulating squares to produce rotating triangular forms and the illusion of depth.⁴ Vromans later published an account of symmetrical triangle subdivision in the Dutch mathematics journal Euclides, connecting his artistic experiments to an explicitly pedagogical explanation of infinite geometric iteration.⁵

These projects clarify the economy of his visual language. Squares, triangles, lines, and curves may remain individually legible, yet repetition loosens their identities. A grid becomes a vortex, a boundary becomes a rhythm, and a simple displacement generates apparent volume. The work depends upon the tension between the transparency of its ingredients and the perceptual density of their combination.

Attraction

Released through Art Blocks on 17 December 2021, Attraction comprises exactly 444 editions. Each unique output is generated from 3,327 bytes of JavaScript stored on-chain.⁶ The series organizes repeated graphic elements into fields that seem to bend, gather, repel, or collapse. Its title offers a useful perceptual cue: the compositions resemble matter responding to invisible forces, although their motion is produced by coded displacement rather than physical gravity.

Across the collection, palette, composition, layout, item count, and displacement vary, while a consistent family resemblance remains visible.⁷ Some outputs concentrate energy around a central interruption. Others distribute tension across the full square, creating woven, cellular, or architectural effects. The six examples below demonstrate how long-form generative practice replaces the single definitive composition with a bounded population of related outcomes.

Live on Art Blocks: attraction-by-jos-vromans ↗

Code as material

Vromans's later experiments make the material status of code increasingly explicit. His small browser works demonstrate that recognizable generative structures can be produced with only a few hundred bytes of HTML and JavaScript.⁸ In Art From Code, the source text itself becomes the starting image before being transformed through reflection, color, and iterative operations. The work also responds to screen dimensions, emphasizing that a browser-based artwork is an executing system rather than a fixed digital picture.⁹

This attention to execution links Attraction to Vromans's broader practice. The collection is complete as 444 recorded editions, but each image remains evidence of an active procedure. Exhibition contexts have extended that procedure into public space. Vellum LA included Vromans in the GEN.ART exhibition Immutable, situating his work among contemporary generative artists and major digital-art collections.¹⁰ Whether encountered on-chain, on a screen, or as a plotted object, his work asks viewers to read complexity not as ornament but as the visible consequence of rules unfolding over time.

Bibliography

The references cited in this essay are listed below. For the complete bibliography see the Jos Vromans links page ↗.