THE COMMISSION
When CoinDesk approached me to paint the portraits for their very popular 'Most Influential' series I was keen to get on board as the twelve individuals shortlisted are some exceptional people involved in the blockchain industry with their influence bridging government and policy making, big business, innovative tech companies, space cats and more.
View the AR features for each painting and read the CoinDesk interviews
When CoinDesk approached me to paint the portraits for their very popular 'Most Influential' series I was keen to get on board as the twelve individuals shortlisted are some exceptional people involved in the blockchain industry with their influence bridging government and policy making, big business, innovative tech companies, space cats and more.
View the AR features for each painting and read the CoinDesk interviews
Andrew Yang
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Caitlin Long
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David Marcus
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Gerald Cotten
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Hodlonaut
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Jack Dorsey
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Justin Sun
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Muneeb Ali
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Meltem Demirors
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Rune Christensen
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Sergey Nazarov
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Ted Livingston
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THE WORK
Each portrait is 73 x 60 cm (29 x 24 inches) and painted in oil and microcrystalline wax on a printed bank note from the country of the subject’s nationality. The print has been produced on high quality, Hahnemühle German etching paper.
Printing currency turned out to be a real challenge in itself as, funnily enough, governments aren’t too keen on people creating high resolution scans of bank notes and then manipulating them in Photoshop, which is what I needed to do to develop the composition before printing the note. Each currency presented its own problems including the scanner not being able to scan the bank note or Photoshop rejecting the scanned image; therefore, my printmaker and I needed to find solutions for each one before the print could be produced.
Each portrait is 73 x 60 cm (29 x 24 inches) and painted in oil and microcrystalline wax on a printed bank note from the country of the subject’s nationality. The print has been produced on high quality, Hahnemühle German etching paper.
Printing currency turned out to be a real challenge in itself as, funnily enough, governments aren’t too keen on people creating high resolution scans of bank notes and then manipulating them in Photoshop, which is what I needed to do to develop the composition before printing the note. Each currency presented its own problems including the scanner not being able to scan the bank note or Photoshop rejecting the scanned image; therefore, my printmaker and I needed to find solutions for each one before the print could be produced.
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Creative process video
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ARTISTIC INNOVATION
I’ve incorporated augmented reality so viewers can scan the paintings with my app CreativMuse to engage a short video clip and listen to a few sound bites from each individual. I've added two AR 'buttons' linking to my website and twitter feed so viewers can connect with me directly when scanning any of the paintings. Morphing software was used to create a smooth transformation from portrait into video.
I’ve embedded two NFC tags into each work. One tag is a link to the subject’s twitter feed so the viewer can hover their smartphone nearby to quickly access the twitter updates or simply to say "hi" and the second tag triggers a short video of me speaking about that particular painting, my thoughts on it and some of the processes involved in its creation.
I’ve incorporated augmented reality so viewers can scan the paintings with my app CreativMuse to engage a short video clip and listen to a few sound bites from each individual. I've added two AR 'buttons' linking to my website and twitter feed so viewers can connect with me directly when scanning any of the paintings. Morphing software was used to create a smooth transformation from portrait into video.
I’ve embedded two NFC tags into each work. One tag is a link to the subject’s twitter feed so the viewer can hover their smartphone nearby to quickly access the twitter updates or simply to say "hi" and the second tag triggers a short video of me speaking about that particular painting, my thoughts on it and some of the processes involved in its creation.