Arthur Laidlaw Giclée Print Available in size A2 Edition of 150 Artwork Information This print is a high quality digital reproduction of an original work by the artist Arthur Laidlaw On the work, Arthur states: "Blót Moon was produced between 2019-2022, looking back at a journey made through the barren Swedish tundra in February 2018. Laidlaw spent ten days shadowing a New York Times journalist as he covered a story on the insidious rise of the far-right in Scandinavia, speaking with neo-pagan extremist groups that threatened both of their safety during the reporting process. Two figures in the composition attend a Blót, a pagan ritual normally involving animal sacrifice. The ancient rites have in recent years been co-opted by a neo-Nazi movement, centring their ideology around a so-called religious practice (along with other signifiers, such as runes and language). In stark contradiction, the urban sprawl of New York cuts across the frame – a city so culturally expansive and visually dense that the figures in the darkness of Swedish night are pushed deep into the hinterland. The image is composed of two 35mm photographs, taken a few months apart, and years later developed, scanned, and digitally reassembled in this double exposure. The colour and texture of each photograph is inverted and distorted as one intersects the other, revealing at the same time more about the narrative between the images, while obscuring any sense of clear resolution." Every print sold in this collection will go towards supporting The British Red Cross Ukraine Crisis Appeal. We will donate 100% funds raised to The British Red Cross Ukraine Crisis Appeal supporting shelter, food, first aid and warm clothes. We would like to thank Arthur Laidlaw for donating her artist fee for the sale of these works. About the artist: In Arthur Laidlaw’s dense compositions, memories and photographs of friends and lovers are transmuted into an almost kaleidoscopic picture plane. These figures are like figments: emphatically present, and yet, somehow receding. They’re vaguely unknowable—more drip and line than character. It’s like the loss of innocence that is subjectivity: that lonely (or liberating) revelation that you can never know someone completely. Arthur Laidlaw (b.1990, London) completed his BA in History of Art at the University of Oxford in 2013, and his MA in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London in 2015. In 2014, Laidlaw was shortlisted for Sky Landscape Artist of the Year. In 2016, Laidlaw raised £25,000 in aid of The White Helmets with his exhibition ‘Razed: Syrian Ruins’. The same year, Laidlaw was awarded the Oxford Art Society Artist of The Year, and was shortlisted for the Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize. In 2018 Laidlaw was shortlisted for the Elephant Magazine Art Prize, and won ‘Best Site-Specific Installation’ at The Others Art Fair, Turin, with the curatorial collective East of Elsewhere. In 2019 he was shortlisted for the Artpiq Painting Award, before his sell-out exhibition ‘Charcoal City’. In 2021 Laidlaw’s work was shown at galleries Efremidis and June, Berlin, and featured in publications such as ZEITmagazin. 2022 marked the beginning of Laidlaw’s SELLOUT project, an emphatic statement against the pull of social media based art ‘consumption’. Arthur Laidlaw lives and works in Berlin. Artists Socials @arthurlaidlaw
