Trevor Jones

Trevor Jones is a Canadian painter based in Edinburgh who became one of the best known artists in crypto art. He came to art late, starting at 31 after a period of depression and a short run at music, then moved to Scotland and studied at Leith School of Art before taking an MA in Fine Art at Edinburgh College of Art, graduating in 2008. He kept painting on canvas while pulling technology into the surface of the work: QR code paintings from 2012, then augmented reality paintings from 2013, which made him one of the first professional painters working seriously with AR. The series Would I Lie to You: the Art of Politics and Propaganda paired oil portraits with AR and QR overlays. In 2018 he spent a year making a crypto themed show, Crypto Disruption, before any market existed for that subject, a bet that left him broke and in debt. It paid off from late 2019 onward. He minted Ethereum Girl with Mandolin on SuperRare in December 2019, sold Bitcoin Bull on Nifty Gateway in July 2020, made EthBoy with Alotta Money on Async Art, and collaborated with Pak on Collision. The Bitcoin Angel open edition on Nifty Gateway in February 2021 minted 4,158 editions in seven minutes and grossed over three million dollars. Later work includes Man vs Machine with Ice Cube, The Angel's Share on Metacask, the CryptoAngels ordinals on Bitcoin, and The Oath, shown on Oxford Street screens for the coronation of King Charles III.

He paints in oil on canvas first and then extends the painting with technology, using QR codes, augmented reality, animation and programmable NFT layers so the image keeps changing after it leaves the studio. Named bodies of work include Crypto Disruption, Crypto Cubism, Who is the Creator, Would I Lie to You, EthBoy, The Engine and CryptoAngels. The crypto pieces rework art history directly: Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa becomes The Bitcoin Angel, and Picasso's cubist figures become Bitcoin Bull, Cubist Satoshi and Ethereum Girl with Mandolin. He also sells limited edition physical prints alongside the tokens, which kept the painting practice and the NFT practice on the same footing.

• The Bitcoin Angel, whose February 2021 open edition minted 4,158 pieces in seven minutes
• Crypto Disruption, the 2018 show he spent a year on before a crypto art market existed
• EthBoy, made with Alotta Money on Async Art, a dynamic work that redraws itself from Ethereum data
• Bitcoin Bull, on Nifty Gateway in July 2020, part of the Crypto Cubism series
• Collision, a collaboration with Pak on Nifty Gateway in December 2020
• Early AR and QR code oil paintings, from 2012 onward

On the show