Edition details
Dimensions:
Unframed: 70cm (W) x 72cm (H)
Framed: 78cm (W) x 80cm (H) x 3.5cm (D)
Medium:
11 colour screenprint plus metalic paint on Somerset Tub Sized 410gsm.
Edition size:
50
Authentication:
Signed and individually numbered by the artist.
Certificate of Authenticity:
Hand-made certificate of authenticity (made from an actual floppy disk) sent separately.
Release date:
2nd February, 2023 at 6pm GMT -- [ Sold out by 6:23pm]
Published by:
Toxic Arts, UK
Packaging
Each print comes rolled in a bespoke black tube, wrapped in acid free paper.
About this work
This is screenprint number three in my ongoing adventure with the supremely gifted team at K2 — the folks who help alchemise paint, sweat, and digital sentiment into actual, tangible, wall-mountable art. With this one, we took things a step sideways: instead of just reproducing a single painting, we layered elements from multiple originals to better capture the texture and feel of the real thing — painty bits, imperfections, and all.
Built from 11 separate layers of ink (including a metallic one, because... sparkle ✨), the print uses varied transparencies to mimic the subtle grime and glorious chaos of analogue brushwork. It’s the closest you can get to one of my originals without waking up in my studio, tangled in ribbon cable and wondering where the hell your socks went.
But what’s it about?
It’s about search — that very human need to type something into the void and hope it gives you something meaningful back. A digital conversation with the abyss. This piece pays homage to that awkward, magical period when the internet still felt like an underground club — and Google had just emerged with an algorithm called “Backrub.” (Yes, really.)
Before we “googled” everything from lunch spots to existential crises, we were fumbling through web directories printed on paper. Literal books of websites. “Useful” ones, apparently. That was my first taste of the internet — confused, enchanted, and squinting at a keyboard trying to work out how to type a forward slash.
Google changed the game by asking a deceptively simple question: what if websites vouch for each other like mates in a pub? That became PageRank. And the rest, as they say, is monetised history.
This artwork is a tribute to the elegance of that idea — and a gentle prod at the precariousness of digital dominance. Yahoo once felt invincible too.
So yes, this is a visual ode to the search bar. To the dusty beginnings of the internet. To the time we needed books to find websites. And to the strange, surreal beauty of a company called Backrub reshaping the world forever.
Each print comes with a handmade certificate of authenticity, forged from a genuine floppy disk (no AI-generated fakes here), and ships wrapped in acid-free paper inside a sleek black tube — because nothing says “archival” like packaging that resembles the casing for a Bond villain’s blueprints.
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