YouTuber II 2025 – 112 x 145cm, acrylic, pencil, charcoal on canvas
“YouTuber II” is a shattered yet tender image of the YouTuber series—a painting that feels like it has finally reached the point of total burnout, where performance collapses into private grief. The figure is seated now, slumped forward over a laptop or monitor that has become a kind of altar or tombstone. The screen glows a sickly ochre, the only warm note in an otherwise refrigerated palette, but it’s a poisoned warmth, stained, corroded, the colour of nicotine or old teeth. The head is bowed so low it almost touches the device, hair falling in heavy, tarry strands that merge with the charcoal scribbles whipping around the skull. Those loops are no longer just feedback or cables; they feel like neural misfires, thoughts short-circuiting, or the endless reload spiral of doom-scrolling.
One of the arms is near a point of giving up reaching outward, while the other hand rests palm facing outwards, dissolving into black clots and scraped lines. The gesture that was so assertive in YouTuber II has turned inward, protective or defeated, perhaps cradling the head, perhaps trying to block out the light.
The body itself is barely holding together: torso built up in thick, ridged paint that looks like scar tissue or impacted ash, then abraded back to raw canvas in places so the figure seems to be fraying at the seams.
For the first time in the YouTuber series we see the face more clearly, or as clearly as the language allows. Eyes hollowed out, mouth a dark smear, expression unreadable but unmistakably devastated. Tears? Sweat? Pixel bleed? The vertical drags down the cheeks could be any or all. The face is no longer performing; the mask has slipped, and what’s underneath is exhaustion so profound it looks like mourning.
The monochrome tones: almost entirely black, white, and bruised ochre, with the charcoal and pencil lines functioning like exposed wiring. The unstretched canvas edges are left raw, taped to the wall like a temporary bandage, as if the painting itself is too fragile to be properly stretched yet, something I still have to consider. The provisional hanging adds to the sense of impermanence, the whole setup could be taken down at any moment, demonetised, deleted. Compared to the previous large YouTubers.
In YouTuber III, the digital extraction feels complete. The YouTuber isn’t broadcasting anymore; they’re absorbing, consuming their own content, or perhaps just staring into the void that stares back. The laptop has become both lifeline and grave marker. The swirling marks around the head read less like noise now and more like a private storm of despair.
On this scale, with this degree of intimacy, the painting achieves something close to classical tragedy. It’s no longer about a specific content creator or even the platform; it’s about what happens to consciousness when it’s forced to live inside its own echo. The body is present, heavy, materially assertive, and utterly alone. The reaching arm has finally stopped reaching, and what’s left is unbearably human.
