Philip Gerald

Philip Gerald (b.1992) is an artist based in Dublin, focusing on painting in a style that

recreates the aesthetic of simplistic digital images. Philip Gerald paints in a faux-naïf

aesthetic that replicates the aesthetic of simplistic

digital illustration. His irreverent, colorful and humorous paintings frequently allude to

canonical works from art history, drawing on everything from Old Master still lifes to David

Hockney’s iconic, sensually charged pool paintings. The colors emphasize the nostalgic

undertones of his scenes, which evoke the heydays of clip art, Microsoft Paint and meme

culture, of crude images beamed around the world via the majesty of dial-up internet.

Gerald explores the dichotomy of digital and material art and their associated or

perceived values in his practice. Pointlessly recreating crude digital drawings with

analogue techniques, these subtly-painted saccharine images depict figures and

scenarios draped in a veil of humor and anxiety. With a particular interest in Vincent Van

Gogh, Gerald juxtaposes the famous “Sunflower” series alongside paintings of the frustrated

artist. This lively, visually stimulating narrative tells a contemporary story about

the challenges of the creative process for the twenty-first century. Some of Gerald’s

canvases resemble Old Master still life paintings in terms of composition but more like

crude digital art in terms of execution. The paintings act as visual representations of the

kind of work Gerald advises to create. The artist also includes a lot of logos and brands in

his images. Gerald saw branding everywhere, so much that he didn’t see a reason not to

include it. It adds an element of reliability. A large part of the creation process of Gerald is

responding to experience, often in a direct way.