Painting as a Pastime brings together paintings by George W. Bush, writing by Winston Churchill, painting performance by Boris Johnson, and the reworking of Adolf Shicklegruber’s oeuvre by Jake and Dinos Chapman.  

The project is conceived by AAAA, an anonymous group of artists that create work solely using archives. They change one word in their name each time they exhibit work, maintaining maximum secrecy by only ever revealing their unchanging acronym.

The history of the powerful and the painter is examined in an archival element of the festival - ‘Painting as a Pastime’ taking its name from a book by Winston Churchill, one time Prime Minister and painter. The exhibit draws together press framing of heads of countries who have turned to painting - from Churchill to George W. Bush to Alexander ‘Boris’ Johnson, painters who turned to politics - Adolf Schicklegruber - as well as artists’ Jake and Dinos Chapman, who modify the works of these politician-painter hybrids. 

George W. Bush’s portraits of world leaders are used to examine how this self described ‘simple painter’ is recuperated or not through this pastime. The failed attempt to secure a ‘Boris’ Johnson original sits alongside press coverage of him painting al-fresco, something that Winston Churchill was also pictured doing. Dubious ideas of authenticity (Bush’s portraits are based on google image search hits), Johnson’s 

Jake and Dinos Chapman 2008 project, ‘If Hilter Had Been a Hippy How Happy We Would Be’, which reworked Hitler watercolours alongside this.