BLUE BIRD // EDITION ZERO [STUDIO PROOF]

"Nothing is ever truly finished, only abandoned to the gallery wall."

The title is the work. Named after the frantic naming conventions of a creator under pressure — final_v2_FINAL_final.jpeg — this piece is a study in the anxiety of incompleteness and the irony of modification.

Most people who know Michelangelo's David know it through a screen. Compressed, resized, saved one too many times. FINALFINALDAVID.JPEG takes that degradation and makes it physical. The format is square — 1:1, an Instagram ratio, a screen ratio. Up close, the surface shows hand-cut distortions that mimic the artefacts of a heavily processed image. The figure is still recognisable. The damage is also recognisable.

Built in wood, spray paint and high-gloss epoxy, it demands that you acknowledge the physical thing in front of you rather than the memory of a file.

Hand-contoured timber. Acrylics, spray paint and hand-cut collage constructed to recreate JPEG compression artefacts as physical texture. High-gloss epoxy varnish. Hand-built frame included. Signed and dated verso.

Part of the Antiquity series, in direct conversation with APHRODITE. Produced in the Manchester studio, 2024. One exists. Provenance documented from point of acquisition.