>For artists who continue to paint, or use other physical means of expression through base materials and sell them as physical works, this entire AI art surge remains largely irrelevant in a practical sense. A buyer or patron who wants real, physical art will still need and want real, physical art, and I don't see an AI imitating much of that easily any time soon.
Giclée prints on canvas are already very popular with artists. Printing into physical medium is already trivial whether the art is produced by human or AI.
See as an example the Epson SureColor S80600 Printer:
For artists at high levels who print, the print is a part of the work and is often done with close to as much care as one puts into a painting—fine tuning colors, making small details perfect, printing on exotic materials, totally messing up the print in certain ways, painting over it, layering the print with other things, printing on fabric and hanging, stretching, modifying, or destroying the fabric etc etc.
Every aspect of making things available to humans becomes a medium, from writing code to literally just cleaning something to factory production to using "art materials."
Indeed a lot of mid-tier / long-tail work is also just straight up prints from the print shop, but OP is talking about the bespoke side of the spectrum. At the high end, fine art defines "bespoke."
Giclée prints on canvas are already very popular with artists. Printing into physical medium is already trivial whether the art is produced by human or AI.
See as an example the Epson SureColor S80600 Printer:
https://epson.ca/For-Work/Printers/Large-Format/Epson-SureCo...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TECjOmrlogg