Meet Paul Kirby, the ex-USAF engineer behind the unique ‘robotic artist’ Dulcinea. Story by Alexandra Campbell
Paul Kirby is an artist, engineer, and author of The FUSE Pathway: How to Find and Lead a Fulfilling Life. He is also the originator of “Fusioneering”, a philosophy and framework for integrating diverse passions into a life of vision and purpose.
From earning an engineering degree at the University of California, Berkeley, to serving as an officer in the US Air Force, completing an MBA at Harvard Business School, and building a successful career in venture capital backing early-stage technology companies, Kirby has walked an interdisciplinary path that reflects the very principles he teaches.
In 1994, inspired by a Leonardo da Vinci exhibit, Kirby felt called to explore an exciting idea: What might it look like if da Vinci were alive today – armed with modern robotics-and wanted to merge his love of machinery with his artistic imagination?
That question, and Kirby’s resulting vision, became the creative spark behind Dulcinea, a 10-foot tall, fully automated painting robot.
Dulcinea brings together precision engineering, extensive coding, artificial intelligence, and aesthetic intent. Her physical structure includes seven high-performance servo motors – including a human-like wrist-that enable her to execute thousands of exquisite brushstrokes per canvas.
Operating without human supervision, she produces large-scale, original artworks that blend visual storytelling with machine-driven execution.
But Dulcinea is more than a technical accomplishment. She reflects a personal philosophy: that engineering can be a form of self-expression. Programmed entirely from scratch, her works are not adaptations of existing images, as seen in generative art, but original compositions.
For Kirby, she represents something beyond a technical milestone, but rather a deeply personal and successful fusion of his passions.
Engineering excellence: The technical anatomy of an artistic robot
Dulcinea – a word with Spanish roots, meaning “sweet” – represents a complex integration of mechanical design, artificial intelligence, creative coding, and a fully automated robotic workcell capable of creating paintings.
At her core are seven high-performance servo motors that enable precise motion across multiple axes.
This sophisticated system allows her to manage the full spectrum of the painting operation: from retrieving the next jar of paint and dipping the brush using a precise paint-level sensor, to executing thousands of brushstrokes with control and finesse.
She can operate for hours at a time, including overnight when needed, and upon completing a painting, she returns and seals the paint jar, cleans her brush, moves to her home corner, and powers down – all without human involvement.
Dulcinea’s creative process happens in two phases. In the first phase, Kirby codes the painting on a high-powered desktop computer using Lisp, a programming language particularly well-suited for complex coding processes.
It is worth noting that Kirby places deep value on the creative process itself. Rather than relying on photographs, reference images, or dataset-trained models – as is common in many AI-generated art systems – he codes each piece from scratch, making every artwork wholly original.
This approach reflects his belief that true creative fulfillment comes not from imitation, but from the act of building something entirely new.
In the second phase, Dulcinea begins to physically execute the painting onto the canvas, using a workcell also developed by Kirby.
It incorporates an industrial robot controller from Adept Technology, running their proprietary V+ robot programming language, custom-configured operating system, and motor and I/O controls.
This controller manages three concurrent operations in real time: a six-axis gantry-style robot; a second robot providing an axis for vertical up/down motion for the wrist, ensuring precise dipping into the paint; and a pneumatic system that handles brush washing, clean and dirty water flow, and paint jar exchanges.
Notably, in June of 1983, Kirby was a founding venture capital investor and board director at Adept Technology, Inc., which at one point was the largest American robot company in the United States.
As a result of this two-phase process, we have a highly-orchestrated robotic workcell that merges machinery, dexterity, logic, and aesthetics.
Dulcinea gives striking physical form to Kirby’s fusioneering vision: a life where engineering and creativity move in harmony – one capable of producing large, impactful paintings, with visual movement, color, texture, and exquisite brushwork.
Beyond mere replication: Dulcinea’s distinct place in robotic art
The field of robotic art has grown increasingly diverse, with artists, engineers, and research institutions exploring how artificial intelligence and mechanical systems can participate in creative expression.
Projects like e-David, developed by the University of Konstanz, use visual feedback loops to iteratively replicate existing images.
Ai-Da, a humanoid robot with a wide media profile, leverages camera input and machine learning to generate paintings, poetry, and sculptures that challenge viewers’ assumptions about machine authorship.
Many of these systems intersect with market considerations, cultural commentary, or novelty-driven public engagement. Whether designed for gallery sales or conceptual critique, most rely on generative models or neural networks trained on visual datasets.
Their outputs, while often compelling, are typically variations of pre-existing imagery shaped by data input and algorithmic interpretation.
On that front, Dulcinea stands apart in both origin and execution. She was not created in a research lab nor for an exclusively public exhibition.
Rather, Kirby built her in his small Loveland, Colorado studio as a pure expression of creative fusion, embodying the essence of his aptly-named Fusioneering philosophy.
Unlike most robots, Dulcinea was designed from a unique place of creative expression, engineering acumen, and potent curiosity.
Key differentiators include: her fully-automated operation with large canvases and tens-of-thousands of brushstrokes; the ability to wash the brush between colors or after extended idle periods; precise paint exchange and jar sealing to prevent drying; and a highly sensitive system that measures the paint level in each jar to a fraction of a millimeter.
This last feature is essential for accurate and exquisite brushwork, as paint levels fluctuate during use and vary between jars.
Canvas chronicles: Exploring Dulcinea’s artistic output
Dulcinea’s body of work showcases the convergence of engineering precision and artistic sensibility. Each painting is coded from scratch, with no use of visual data like JPEGs, and brought to life through her fully automated execution.
The results are galleries of large-format paintings – each measuring several feet across – that span genres, techniques, and emotional tones, all created from entirely original code.
Among her most personal and ambitious works is Meditation Upon Death, a 78″ x 68″ painting completed in 2018 and dedicated to the memory of Kirby’s late wife, Linda.
Structured in three acts – the moment of passing, the spirit’s transition through the afterlife, and an unresolved resolution – it unfolds as a visual narrative of grief, transcendence, and reflection.
The painting required 5,796 brushstrokes and is widely regarded as one of Dulcinea’s most emotionally resonant creations.
Visitors to Kirby’s Virtual Reality Art Gallery and Robotics Studio can zoom in on the delicate, curving purple brushwork, an especially striking example of Dulcinea’s fine motor control and artistic finesse.
In contrast, Cappuccino Fluid Dynamic, a 64” x 86” painting, offers a more abstract exploration. Inspired by the swirling foam in a cappuccino, the piece began with a computational fluid dynamics simulation.
Kirby then captured that mathematical swirling energy and translated it into brushstrokes, resulting in a kinetic, layered painting that conveys motion and chaos with visual excitement. It exemplifies how physics and code can be transposed into reinterpreted visual art.
Another standout, Impressionist, a 48” x 54” painting, pays tribute to pointillist technique while showcasing Dulcinea’s technical range.
Using a palette of 24 colors – including six warm yellows, six cool yellows, and a combination of 12 warm and cool purples – she applied 44,943 individual brushstrokes to build a luminous, optically vibrant canvas.
The density and variation of strokes expertly mimic the shimmer of light in classical Impressionist works.
Collectively, these artworks, and many others seen on Kirby’s website or VR tour of his studio space and galleries, demonstrate that Dulcinea is more than a technical instrument.
She is a partner in artistic expression: one capable of creating works that evoke emotion, provoke thought, and embody the fusioneering ideal – art born from the spirit of convergence.
Broader impact: Reimaging robotics through personal vision
While Dulcinea, at her core, is a robotic painter she’s also so much more. Her presence serves as a creative embodiment of Paul Kirby’s Fusioneering philosophy.
In his book The FUSE Pathway, Kirby outlines a framework for integrating one’s varied passions into a singular vision and fulfilling life. Dulcinea was born from this ethos, fusing Kirby’s deep interests in art, engineering, and robotics into an expressive journey of creative joy.
While the book features historical examples of polymaths, inventors, and innovators who exemplified this kind of fusion, Dulcinea serves as a modern, deeply personal illustration.
She brings disciplines often viewed as incompatible: logic and emotion, code and canvas, machine execution and human storytelling. In doing so, she redefines what it means to be creative in a technological age.
Kirby continues to share this vision through multiple channels. The virtual reality tour of his art galleries and robotics studio immerse visitors in Dulcinea’s world, offering a 360-degree experience of her paintings and process.
Designed to capture the layout and intimacy of his Loveland, Colorado studio, the VR experience allows people around the world to step inside the artist-engineer’s space.
For those local to Colorado, Kirby also offers in-person studio tours, providing a firsthand look at how mechanics, programming, and passion converge.
These experiences are unquestionably educational in nature, but they’re also invitations to rethink what’s possible. Kirby sees technology not as a substitute for human creativity, but as a means of deepening it.
In a cultural moment dominated by generative AI, productivity for productivity’s sake, and rapid content production, Dulcinea stands as a counterpoint: a machine built not for speed or spectacle, but for personal fulfillment – and ultimately, creative inspiration on a larger scale.
Her existence raises a powerful set of questions: What if the future of robotics is not just functional, but also a creative means of self-expression? What if machines could support meaning-making instead of attempting to replace it?
In this vision, technology becomes more than just a tool; it becomes a medium through which we are offered the opportunity to rediscover the joy, curiosity, and purpose that makes the creative process worth pursuing.
And in doing so, it reminds us that fulfillment isn’t found only in the final result, but in every step along the way; and that it is entirely possible to live in joy and meaning through every step along the way.
For more insights into Kirby’s work and philosophy, visit TheFUSEPathway.com.
