Pride, Work, and Necessity of Side Projects: Internet-Inspired Art by Joshua Rains

What are you working on—on the side?

I make drawings and paintings of an individual’s private life based on information I can glean from the Internet. More often than not I don’t know the person, and I don’t tell them I’m making work based on their life. I would say my work is an exploration in the blur between private lives and public selves, and how that line is mediated by social media and new technology. I’m really intrigued about the reality of contemporary privacy and the exploitation of...