Artist Statement
My work explores how images and symbols shape belief, identity, and cultural narratives in a technologically evolving world. I investigate how the meaning of images evolves as audiences encounter them in both physical and digital environments.
My projects combine multiple artistic media including painting, digital, and installation with technologies such as animation, AI, blockchain technology, sound, and interactive environments to create layered experiences.
Central to my practice is the idea that artworks can function as evolving symbolic systems that invite interpretation and participation. Through this approach I examine how new technologies influence the creation and circulation of meaning in modern culture.
Themes of power, spirituality, human agency, and the shifting relationship between humanity and machines recur throughout my work. Images often act as entry points into broader conceptual frameworks where audiences participate in the interpretation and evolution of the artwork.
My recent projects explore how artistic practice can expand into participatory environments where communities engage with shared symbolic structures within an increasingly networked world.
The Bitcoin Angel
Artist bio
Trevor Jones is a Canadian-born artist based in Scotland. After travelling extensively in his twenties, he settled in Edinburgh where he studied at Leith School of Art before enrolling in the five-year MA (Hons) Fine Art programme jointly delivered by Edinburgh College of Art and the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 2008 with First Class Honours.
Jones first gained attention for experimenting with ways that traditional paintings could interact with digital media. In 2012 he created large-scale QR code oil paintings linking viewers to online galleries and global artist communities. The following year he began working with augmented reality, becoming one of the early artists to animate physical paintings through AR technology.
By late 2017 he was exploring themes emerging from cryptocurrency culture, and in 2019 released his first NFT artworks, opening new possibilities for combining painting with digital animation, sound, and blockchain-based provenance.
Jones gained international recognition in 2021 with The Bitcoin Angel, which sold out within minutes and became one of the breakout artworks of the early cryptoart movement. Other notable projects include The Angel’s Share, a collaboration with Metacask involving a 1991 Macallan whisky cask that achieved a record-breaking auction sale, and MAN VS MACHINE, a series of four large portraits of rapper Ice Cube combining painting, animation, AI, and four original tracks produced by Ice Cube himself.
Alongside his studio practice, Jones founded the Castle Party, a Web3 community gathering that has raised more than $175,000 for Maggie’s cancer charity.
More recently his work has expanded into large-scale environments and interconnected narrative projects. Series such as CryptoAngels and The Engine explore myth and digital culture through multiple media, while the immersive exhibition EXPOS3D brought together painting, sculpture, stained glass, AR, AI, sound, and performance within a participatory installation.