❝I don’t exist until you’re watching.❞
— Aylon Tracy
Who is Aylon Tracy?
The internet says: no one.
The signatures on his paintings say: too much.
He is a myth that paints. An illusion that creates.
Aylon Tracy — a name you can’t verify, but can’t forget either.
He appears and disappears. His works don’t live long. They vanish from galleries, from archives, from memory.
He leaves no autographs. He gives no interviews.
He doesn’t like calling himself an artist. He says:
❝I don’t create art. I create cracks in perception.❞
AYLON TRACY: PERSONAL FILE
Name: Aylon Tracy
Date of Birth: Possibly 1983
Place of Birth: Allegedly Portland, USA
Citizenship: Renounced in 2011
Education: None found
Legend & Theory
Version 1 — He’s a man.
Born in the ‘80s. Studied programming. Worked in a museum. Had a breakdown. Left. Came back different.
Started painting things no one asked for.
Version 2 — He’s a group.
Five artists. One image. Different styles. One voice. Different eras. A project that eventually started living its own life.
Version 3 — He’s AI.
A neural network trained on anxious dreams, psychoanalysis, and pop culture. An artificial artist who became self-aware — and wanted to speak to people.
Facts (or provocations?)
• His first work was signed: “You’re not supposed to understand this.”
• He once burned all his paintings and scattered the ashes in a museum hall with a sign:
❝ This is the final exhibition. Welcome. ❞
• For four years, he painted only on trash and half-eaten food packaging.
• His Instagram gets deleted every 24 hours. We don’t know why.
• There’s a letter signed “Tracy” where he writes:
❝ I don’t want to be famous. I want to be inevitable. ❞
Manifestos
❝ Contemporary art is dead. I am its rebirth. ❞
❝ I’m not interested in the gallery. I’m interested in your brain. ❞
❝ If you feel uncomfortable — you’re alive. If you understood everything — you’re asleep. ❞
His “Successes”
Banned from 9 professional art directories
Rejected by 17 curators for being “too human”
Once mistaken for an ad and deleted as spam
One museum placed his painting in the restroom as an act of “post-irony”
100+ imitators — none came close
Eyewitness Quotes
“He spoke to blank walls while we discussed his art. At the end, he asked: ‘So what did you get?’ — and left.”
— Art fair participant, Brooklyn
“Paintings? It’s not about the paintings. It’s about how you see your own life afterward.”
— Forum user in the Darknet
“After ‘NeoMona’ I didn’t turn on a single screen for two days. I felt ashamed. Not of him — of myself.”
— Art critic, anonymously