THE BITCOIN ANGEL“Satire is a lesson; parody is a game” ~ Vladimir Nabokov  The Bitcoin Angel, Trevor Jones The Bitcoin Angel oil painting by Trevor Jones is a very striking example of a notable and recurring feature of modern and contemporary art. Right from the outset of modern art in the middle of the 19th century many avant-garde artists wished to create within their work, a dialectical tension between the inherited tradition of art history and the innovative agenda of Modernism. This was in order to set-up and expand a creative dialogue between the art of the past and theirs of present. For instance, we can find this eclectic strategy within the paintings of Manet, such as Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe and Olympia. In such early masterpieces of modern painting the “Father of Modern Art” wittily references Old Masters such as Raphael and Titian in order to discuss pictorially such issues as academic nudity and mundane nakedness, eternal beauty and passing fashion within a modern life milieu. Unfortunately, in these marvelous pictorial parodies, both the seriousness and humor of Manet’s intent were lost on his initial hostile public; but thankfully not on the swelling avant-garde movement that followed on from him.  Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe and Olympia, Édouard Manet By the time Cubism emerged at the beginning of the 20th-century the idea of parodying the academic conventions of the artistic tradition was built into the modernist creative strategy. In their radical assault on pictorial memetic illusionism Braque and Picasso for example, would often introduce surrogate text into their collaged still lives. For instance, they would frequently include the word “jou”(the French term for having fun) to express the concept of playfulness. This use of parody, often with much more vicious and subversive intent, was soon taken up by the Dadaists and Surrealists who used it as one of their main assaults on bourgeois culture and its conventions. This recurring strategy of parody in modern art has furthermore continued right through to our postmodern era, in the work of such artists as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichenstein and more recently with Jeff Koons - although now parody can easily come close to mere pastiche.  Les Oiseaux Morts, Picasso & Bottle, Glasses, and Newspapers, Braque As can be seen from his work, Trevor Jones is certainly a highly educated painter who is well versed in the history of art. Evidence for this is found in the way his painting frequently engages with old and modern masters such as Picasso, and here with his The Bitcoin Angel, the 17th century Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. With his keen knowledge of, and deep respect for, his art historical sources, Jones never indulges in cheap pastiche, but, like Manet and Picasso before him, aims to stimulate a meaningful dialogue between the art of the past and our present historical situation. Bernini’s The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa is a thought-provoking art historical source for an artist like Jones to visit and re-present for his contemporary audience. It is of course, one of Bernini’s most celebrated works and has become an iconic example of 17th century baroque art. Bernini was regarded and lauded as one of the most important propagandists for the Roman Catholic counter-reformation. As can be seen in most of his commissioned work for the Church and its ecclesiastical princes, Bernini’s spectacular art - whether in sculpture or architecture - invariably sets out to sweep up the spectator in a great wave of emotional drama and high theatricality.
Wisely, Jones does not overelaborate his intervention into Bernini’s masterpiece. Translating the three-dimensionality of the highly ornate sculptural installation into two-dimensional painting, Jones is obliged to reduce its scale to the size of his canvas and skillfully turn its free-standing figures and accompanying props into a single unified image. This he carries out with superb painterly skill, translating sculptural marble and metal into pictorial texture and pigment. The only major change that Jones makes to Bernini’s original concept is the placement of the Bitcoin logo over the sculptor’s backdrop of gilded rods. Yet, while this does not greatly alter the compositional format of Bernini’s work, it does of course, radically change and challenge its religious character and ideological significance. Whereas Bernini wishes to elevate the lower terrestrial domain, as exemplified by the floating rock on which St Teresa lies, to the celestial sublime of the golden rays above her, Jones’ intervention reverses this mystical transcendence. Thus, in The Bitcoin Angel heavenly light is now provocatively turned into earthly gold.  Whereas pastiche rarely takes its subject, or even itself, very seriously, parody, on the other hand, is not only motivated by serious intentions, but is concerned to have a provocative impact on its intended audience. With The Bitcoin Angel Jones raises a controversial issue that has repeatedly plagued art over the centuries - the complex relationship between the artistic and the monetary, the aesthetic and the mercenary. Many, especially those of an aesthete's disposition, wish to see them kept well apart to avoid contamination. Unfortunately for those advocating this cultural apartheid, art and money have always been drawn to each other in one way or another - in fact, they do not seem to be able to exist without each other.
In The Bitcoin Angel Jones brings the spiritual and ethereal realm of Bernini’s Saint Teresa into the domain of the material and moneyed world of the 21st century. With his own particular response to Baudelaire’s injunction that modern art should be a meeting of the “eternal and the transitory”, Jones has produced a complex hybrid work of art in which the mystical and the mundane, the sacred and the profane, the historical and the contemporary, the sculptural and the pictorial - and to blur the Nabokovian distinction - satire and paradox are all brought together in a fascinating and thought-provoking encounter. Bill Hare
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7 minute read And if I hadn't come now to the coast to disappear I may have died in a landslide of rocks and hopes and fears ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ was the first painting to sell on the opening night of my very first commercial gallery exhibition in 2010. I was so nervous on the lead up to this show that I was honestly thinking about quitting painting to find another career. It would have been quite the waste of a giant student loan debt as I was barely two years out of art college, but the 4 or 5 weeks of anxiety and sleepless nights before the opening were tearing me apart. It took me a long time to learn how to deal with my pre-exhibition fear and to manage the inevitable anxiety that comes with it.  Swim Until You Can't See Land, mixed media, 2010 However, with the sale of ‘Swim…’ I calmed down a little on the night but I was genuinely surprised that of all the paintings in the exhibition, this was the first one to sell. The work is especially dark; deep Prussian blues and even black with a few glimpses of light appearing through the darkness, it’s intentionally moody and foreboding. The piece was unlike any of my other paintings that were accompanying it on the gallery walls, which were all much lighter and colourful. Yet that night someone connected with this work so much that they wanted to buy it. There was something special about the painting from the beginning. If the story ended there, I’d be happy. I wish it did end there. The exhibition was titled ‘Synaesthesia’ and the paintings were each inspired by a contemporary Scottish song. Admittedly, I’m not a synaesthete and I don’t ‘see’ colour when I hear musical notes but the notion of using music and rhythm as stimuli to create visual art captured my imagination for a few years. Of course music can't be directly translated visually; instruments and song lyrics connect emotionally by means in which a painting doesn't and so the notion of bringing the two art forms together was intriguing. When working on the paintings for this show I’d listen to each track literally hundreds of times in my studio, over and over on repeat, as I worked on the correlating painting until eventually, I felt the artwork captured some (subjective) visual essence of the song. I also loosely followed the colour music code created by 20th century painter Roy de Maistre and so each work became a creative exercise in balancing my subjective interpretation and emotional response to the song with de Maistre's quasi-scientific code.  Some of the other paintings in the exhibition ‘Swim…’ was by the indie rock band Frightened Rabbit. I didn’t know much about them at the time, but I’d heard they were rising stars on the Scottish music scene and they'd been touring quite extensively. As for the other songs that inspired the artworks, it was a mixed bag of genres that included KT Tunstall, Primal Scream, Martyn Bennett, Garbage, Biffy Clyro and more. All of the songs and the artists undeniably became important to me, in part due to listening to them day in and day out over the course of a year but also because they were the inspiration for the work for that critical first solo show. The Frightened Rabbit song resonated with me in particular. If you listen to it there’s a light and ethereal quality to the guitar riffs and an uplifting cadence and rhythm in general but when I first heard the song, to me it sounded more like a call for help, an existential crisis or perhaps the words of someone who had already made the decision to resign from life. I’d researched the lyrics before I began working on the painting and I found comments online attempting to interpret them. Almost everyone described the song as a message of hope, of successfully navigating a terrible time like a difficult breakup followed by letting go of the past. I didn’t decode the song like that at all but then I’d only recently recovered from some difficult years battling depression and I figured my view was most likely skewed and I still wasn’t seeing things clearly. Nevertheless, what came out of me and onto the canvas for ‘Swim…’ did not look like a message of hope, it appeared more a statement about the fragility of life. Fast forward a year to 2011 and I was organising a charity fundraiser for Art in Healthcare. The fundraiser was set up in collaboration with the Hard Rock Café Edinburgh, and as part of the event I painted a Gibson guitar for an auction. With the help of the HRC we’d managed to get some well know musicians to sign the back of the guitar including Jon Lord of Deep Purple and Canada’s own Bare Naked Ladies. Coincidentally, the two brothers who formed Frightened Rabbit, Scott and Grant Hutchison also signed the guitar.  A few weeks after the event HRC put on a dinner to thank some of the people involved and that’s the night I met the FR band members. It was a fun evening; eating, drinking and chatting. I distinctly remember Grant and the guitarist Andy Monaghan explaining the band’s song writing process to me in detail. It was fascinating. We also talked about my painting of 'Swim…', which I was surprised to discover they'd seen on social media. Grant mentioned that his and Scott’s parents were interested in the artwork and so I got their address and posted a print to them a couple weeks later as a gift. I was absorbed in the conversation that evening but something stood out to me. The lead singer and songwriter, Scott seemed ‘elsewhere’, distant. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The rest of the band was outgoing, talkative, and engaged. I couldn’t tell if Scott was playing the 'reticent and aloof rockstar', if he was disinterested in my chat, or maybe he just didn’t like me. I didn’t know how to decipher him but whatever it was, I was very aware of it. It’s unsettling to know that one’s perception and judgment of another person can be so terribly biased and simply wrong due to a lack of information.  Grant and Scott Move ahead seven more years. Thursday, May 2nd, 2018 Scott was found on the banks of the Firth of Forth in Port Edgar. He ended his life at the age of 36. His struggle with depression was well documented in his songs and in interviews. He wasn’t afraid to talk about his fragility through his lyrics and yet this wasn’t enough to help him through it. When I found out what had happened, I was in shock. It really hit me hard and it brought me back to the evening we met and how I completely misread him. I didn't know Scott well; I didn't know him at all to be honest, but I wish so much that he and I had connected at the restaurant that night and we were able to talk about our battles with depression. Even though it’s been more than 15 years since my own mental health issues I can still recall vividly how I felt then, which is crazy because I can barely remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. I described my state of mind to my GP at the time; it was like I was treading water out in the deep sea at night, struggling to keep my head above the shallow waves. There were times I'd wonder what would happen if I just stopped swimming. This hopelessness and despair would go on for weeks, even months at a time without any reprieve and this cycle in turn continued for almost three years. All I wanted back then, more than anything, was to be able to talk to someone who'd struggled like I was struggling and who'd somehow made it out the other side. I never found anyone to speak with though because like so many men fighting with depression I didn’t want anyone to know what I was going through. I’d deal with it on my own terms. I read an interview with Grant after Scott's death explaining that although his brother was open about his mental health issues, he wasn’t so good when it came to talking about them in private. He said, "I think that's quite a common thing with people that suffer - they become quite good at hiding it." I know exactly what he meant by that. I wish I could have talked to Scott about it that night. I don’t know what else to say. The only thing I know is that when I look at this painting, I mean REALLY look at it, my eyes still fill with tears.  I could go into great lengths about how my interpretation of Scott’s lyrics influenced the making of this painting; the palette I used and why, the lyrics scratched onto the surface of it, or the sand and pieces of collage incorporated into it. I could talk in detail about the music 'All That Remains' that I chose for the NFT and how this affected the making of the animation. I could discuss how I feel the two artworks, the painting and the NFT, speak to me independently but how when understood and experienced ‘as one’ they’re even more powerful. But I’ve said enough. I’m not a writer, I'm a painter, and at the end of the day the artwork should speak for itself. If you’re feeling depressed please don’t be afraid to ask for help. The best thing you can do is to talk to someone, especially someone who’s been there. Feel free to message me any time. Additionally, below are a few organisations that can help. Trust me when I say that it does get better. It gets a lot better. It just takes time and some support. ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’
I salute at the threshold of the North Sea of my mind And I nod to the boredom that drove me here to face the tide And I swim, I swim, oh swim Dip a toe in the ocean, oh how it hardens and it numbs The rest of me is a version of man built to collapse in crumbs And if I hadn't come now to the coast to disappear I may have died in a landslide of rocks and hopes and fears So I swim until you can't see land Swim until you can't see land Swim until you can't see land Are you a man? Are you a bag of sand? Swim until you can't see land Swim until you can't see land Swim until you can't see land Are you a man? Are you a bag of sand? Up to my knees now Do I wade? Do I dive? The sea has seen my like before, though it's my first and perhaps last time Let's call me a Baptist, call this a drowning of the past She is there on the shoreline throwing stones at my back Swim until you can't see land Swim until you can't see land Swim until you can't see land Are you a man? Are you a bag of sand? And the water is taller than me And the land is a marker line All I have is a body adrift in water, salt and sky  Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, 1652 -- The Ecstasy, oil on canvas, 120 x 90 cm, 2018
Without warning, the angel lunges with the arrow piercing it deep into her chest, releasing an excruciatingly sweet pain as Teresa’s head falls back with eyes closed in rapture. She opens her eyes momentarily, surprised to see bitcoin spill out from her as the arrow is withdrawn; however, Teresa is even more aware of the knowing smile appearing on the angel’s face and the intense heat radiating from her beating heart. The temporal being of St Teresa wishes this moment will never end but her spirit understands that there will be consequences. View the animation with audio at the SuperRare marketplace here. Demo video of the augmented reality feature below. The oil painting was created with this video July 2018 for my CryptoDisruption exhibition. I've since changed the AR experience to the original 1/1 NFT animation with music. Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515 – 1582) described the scene in her autobiography, “In the angel’s hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times ... and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease.”  Saint Teresa of Ávila by Peter Paul Rubens, 1615 Bernini used this masterful and undeniably erotic artwork as a springboard to a new and higher type of spiritual awakening. The work became a melding of sensual and spiritual pleasure, the heavenly and the earthly coming together. The piercing of Teresa’s heart becomes a point of contact between earth and heaven, matter and spirit. These uniquely powerful combinations are what I focussed on when creating the original painting, the accompanying AR video and now with this NFT animation. This painting was inspired by the 2017 crypto bull run and the euphoria that was sweeping across the world as bitcoin quickly surged towards $20,000. I searched for a powerful image that could be reinterpreted to convey the high emotion and insatiableness of some crypto companies, ICOs, 'influencers' and over leveraged investors driving this delirium whilst heralding it under the guise of self-sovereignty, morality, and a Utopian prosperity. People’s lives were changing dramatically. Literally overnight, ‘dreams’ were coming true, money was being made faster (and lost faster) than could be imagined. There seemed to be no limit to the heights and greed that could be achieved.  Cornaro Chapel, Rome In search for a symbol, I turned towards the highly ornate and extravagant Baroque period renowned for its ostentatious displays of wealth by the monarchs and decided on one of the greatest masterpieces of the 17th century, Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. This symbol would be reworked and reimagined with oil paint, video and animation in an attempt to convey the original message of connection with a ‘higher power’, the search for the divine, but to also carry with it a message of caution and the need for responsibility. I aimed to capture that moment which Bernini first created – when the angel and St Teresa act out a scene of both pleasure and pain simultaneously, the ecstasy and the agony, but this time in front of a shining, golden bitcoin.
The Bitcoin Angel represents dreams, hope, and the desire to improve oneself, but it also acts as a warning to the greedy, self-absorbed and negligent that without caution and integrity, those ‘dreams’ can very quickly transform into something entirely different.  The Hodler, oil and wax on canvas, 105 x 140 cm I've decided to create NFTs from some of the paintings from my 2018 exhibition Crypto Disruption beginning with 'The Hodler'. Below is a little information about my creative process with regards to narrative and the use of symbolism in my work. Symbolism in Art Symbolism can play a very powerful role in a painting and through this artistic device an artwork can have many different meanings to many different people, but this is also the beauty of introducing symbols. One person’s interpretation of symbolic representation won’t necessarily align with the person next to them. The Hodler is a good example of this in that someone who is involved with cryptocurrency will respond to this image in an entirely different way to someone who knows nothing of blockchain technology or crypto investment. Furthermore, since I began working with augmented reality, I’ve enjoyed exploring how video can add to the narrative of my paintings; however, with a move into NFTs I’ve been able to develop my artwork ‘stories’ and meaning on deeper levels, layering the work even further with animation and additional symbolism. The Hodler is now made up of three very distinct creative components, each adding to the overall symbolic meaning of the work of art. Firstly, there’s the large painting (105 x 140 cm), created almost entirely with blue and gold oil paint, which consist of a lone figure sitting on a bench near a lake. Viewers of the painting may ask themselves, “Who is the man, what’s he doing?" and perhaps, "What is he thinking about?” but someone who understands the title ‘The Hodler’ will already have an idea as to what this lone individual represents. Second, there’s the video produced for the AR feature of the artwork. The underlying theme of the video is one of unyielding patience and focus regardless of the chaos and volatility happening all around. And lastly, the NFT was the final artistic device to add to the ‘total work of art’, creating a kind of gesamtkunstwerk, and an opportunity to develop the narrative even further through symbolism and added meaning. Note: I've since replaced the original AR video with the NFT animation as the AR feature of the painting (2021))  Crypto Disruption exhibition at the Dundas Street Gallery, Edinburgh Below is a description of the NFT animation along with a breakdown of some of the symbolism embedded into the artwork.
The day ends and night falls and yet the man doesn’t move, he remains on the bench, waiting, thinking. Stars appear in the night sky and a rocket launches in the distance from behind the mountain. The man follows its trajectory as it disappears up into the atmosphere. He waits for morning. Another fish jumps in the lake as the sun rises up over the mountains showering the scene with the colours of gold and blue once again. Interestingly, the one thing the man doesn’t seem to be aware of in this eternal cycle is that every day the sun travels the same line across the sky, one that seems to follow the circumference of a bitcoin hidden in the tree and somehow even embedded partly through the man himself. Hodl. View The Hodler NFT at the KnownOrigin marketplace. The Symbols and the Meaning
I hope you enjoyed reading about some of the ideas behind the creation of my painting and NFT - The Hodler. 🙂  |
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