The Fallacious Four
2020 #Remix
- The Backstory
- Exhibition Statement
- Artwork Info and Bidding
- AR Video Demo
- In the Media
- Exhibition Opening Night Photos
- Scottish Parliament Exhibition
The Backstory
Four important portraits from my 2016 exhibition ‘Would I Lie To You: The Art of Politics & Propaganda’ will be dropping on OpenSea with the auction closing November 3rd, the day of the 2020 US presidential election. These paintings were a turning point in my career for a number of reasons.
Dedicating 10 months working towards and organising the exhibition was a huge gamble because I really didn’t think the paintings would sell – the objective was more about getting eyes on my art. I’d been working with AR since 2013 but the more I delved into incorporating new technology with my creative practice the less interested Scottish galleries were in exhibiting my work. This exhibition was, in a sense, my Hail Mary attempt to draw some attention to me as an artist and to my AR paintings. So, how did this exhibition impact me?
- It forever changed the way I would approach creative concepts and themes in my work.
- All 10 portraits in the exhibition sold on the opening night to one collector providing me with financial stability for the first time as an artist.
- I no longer needed to pick up extra jobs teaching etc and instead I could focus 100% on my own work without fear.
- It proved to me that I didn’t have to jump through commercial gallery hoops to make a living.
- I no longer felt compelled to paint for commercial gallery buyers and I could instead focus on topics that were truly important to me.
- The windfall from the exhibition sales and reinvigorated confidence in my work and concepts led me to researching and investing in cryptocurrency in 2017 and planning my exhibition ‘Crypto Disruption: The Art of Blockchain’.
Exhibition Statement (2016)
Propaganda is being delivered so effectively by governments worldwide that their goal for the attainment of even more wealth and position seems assured while responsible and accountable behaviour appears immaterial.
In response to the mass confusion created by those in power through media channels, and consequently to the helplessness we often feel due to excessive and conflicting information, I’ve created a series of ten augmented reality oil paintings of world leaders and media ‘influencers’ from rubbish found on the streets of Edinburgh.
The 2016 exhibition ‘Would I Lie To You: The Art of Politics and Propaganda’ ran from November 3rd – 14th and coincided with the US presidential election.
The Four Artworks
90 x 90 cm, oil on wood panel + rubbish including plastic bottles, bottle caps, cigarette butts, wrappers.
Favourite quotes: ‘We need global warming’ & ‘The beauty of me is that I’m very rich’.
Auction end time: Nov 3rd, 8:30 pm BST/12:30 pm PST
End time with max extensions: 8:55 pm BST/12:55 pm PST
90 x 90 cm, oil on wood panel + rubbish including coke can, takeaway coffee cup lid, cigarette butts, wrappers, dirt/twigs.
Russia’s ‘Action Man’; stoic, indomitable and looking absolutely fabulous on a deep red background.
Auction end time: Nov 3rd, 8:00 pm BST/12:00 pm PST
End time with max extensions: 8:25 pm BST/12:25 pm PST
90 x 90 cm, oil on wood panel + rubbish including Rockstar Super Sourz energy drink, crisp wrappers, cardboard, cigarette packet.
Boris’s peers on Boris the politician: “He is smart, but he has the attention span of a gnat.” ”If he was not expected to run anything, it could work.”
Auction end time: Nov 3rd, 7:30 pm BST/11:30 am PST
End time with max extensions: 7:55 pm BST/11:55 pm PST
90 x 90 cm, oil on wood panel + rubbish including broken mobile phone, bottle caps, plastic bottle, soft drink can.
The mobile phone represents the News of the World phone hacking scandal plus important names and ‘children’s hands’ scrawled across the artwork.
Auction end time: Nov 3rd, 7:00 pm BST/11:00 am PST
End time with max extensions: 7:25 pm BST/11:25 am PST
AR Video Demo
In the Media
2016 News Articles
Exhibition Opening Night Photos
A selection of photos below from the exhibition opening at Out of the Blue Drill Hall, an arts complex in Edinburgh, Scotland and the home of my studio.
Ben Macpherson (MSP) Minister for Public Finance opened the exhibition on November 3rd, 2016. I was over the moon with how engaged visitors of all ages were as they scanned the paintings with my augmented reality app or went more old school and wrote their thoughts about each of the portrait ‘sitters’ on a large roll of paper on the wall next to each painting. A ‘polling booth’ was set up at the entrance so people could vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump on the opening night.
Scottish Parliament Exhibition
Three of the World Leader portraits (Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Tony Blair) along with my five Celebrity portraits were exhibited at the Scottish Parliament December 2017.
