Artist Feature :: Total Bore

September 20th 2013

FBi Radio

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Brand spankin’ new Total Bore mural at FBi Social

Your fingers fly across the keyboard, tap tapping away as you work on something highly important. Facebook appears magically on the screen. Perhaps Zuckerberg has found a way to transmit brainwashing waves from the computer screen straight into your mind. Next minute everything you imagined you’d achieve, every box you hoped to tick is down the cyber drain, with countless hours and motivation. Yep, you’re stalking people again.

Regardless of the shitty excuse you’ve cooked up for wasting your life scrolling through strangers’ profile pics, Total Bore has the art of productive stalking down pat.

Total Bore aka Bligh Twyford-Moore, is also a member of the band Post Paint. When he isn’t playing his guitar, he paints colourful portraits of his Facebook friends (“friend” is a pretty loose term here).

“I decided to draw everyone connected to my Facebook account: people I knew, people I hardly knew and people that I wished I didn’t know at all.”

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So how did this brilliant idea turn into a reality?

Step one: Bligh copied every name on his Facebook friends list and chucked them into an excel spreadsheet. To give everyone a fair and equal go, he downloaded a subprogram to sort out the names into a random order.

Step two: The Facebook stalking begins. Bligh shuffles through albums to find a photograph that stands out for him. How does he know when he stumbles on the photograph he wants to paint?

“I look for something dynamic and for something colourful. I prefer un-posed photos and photos taken when people are drunk. I really like plaid shirts and denim jackets. Because all these portraits are from the waist up, clothes play a big part in the strength of the finished image.”

Step three: Gathering paint brushes and paper. This is when the creativity juices flow. Thick and bright, brushstrokes animate the faces of the people Bligh paints.

Result: Bligh uploads the photo to Facebook and tags the person. Surprise! You now have your own portrait! And you’re probably drunk in it!

Bligh doesn’t just paint portraits of Facebook friends, as part of the 2013 Sydney Fringe, Young Henrys and Total Bore are hosting a “Bill Murrathon”. With a catchy name like that… how could you resist? And if it takes more than a name to get you excited, did I mention there’s beer involved?

There’s a fist-full of great Bill Murray films, Groundhog Day, Ghostbusters, Lost In Translation, to name a few. Bligh points towards the 1998 film Rushmore as his favourite.

“My favourite scene is where Bill Murray smokes two cigarettes at once in a service elevator… and so I painted it.”

So get yourself down to the Young Henrys tasting room in Newtown until September 28 for a combination of drinking beer while looking at artworks of Bill Murray.

Total Bore also painted the new mural at FBi Social (above) which you should really go check out. Who knows, you might be on it.

Now before you log out of Facebook, go and add Bligh W Twyford-Moore as a friend to go in the draw to have your own portrait painted. Give him a good stalk while you’re at it.