My Dog Sighs Turns Discarded Objects Into Art

Archive feature, first published 2019-02-28.

A dented can is an unlikely place to meet a character, but that encounter is central to the work of English street artist My Dog Sighs. A painted face changes how the discarded object is seen without entirely hiding what it used to be. The account accompanying this 2019 feature traces his interest in drawing to childhood: he reportedly made his first drawing at seven and became known as the child who could draw. Years later, he left his work as a primary-school teacher to pursue art professionally.

The transition was difficult. According to that account, he approached galleries within a 200-mile radius and repeatedly received rejections. A Banksy rat stencil seen in London then suggested another way to reach an audience. Instead of depending entirely on a gallery accepting the work, he began leaving paintings in the street for people to find. The change brought an element of chance into the encounter: the next viewer might be someone who had never planned to look at art that day.

The cost of canvases helped direct him towards materials that were already being thrown away. An old can offered a surface for painting and, just as importantly, a shape with which to work. Once a face appeared on it, the container could become a character. The object did not need to lose every sign of its previous life to make that transformation convincing. Its wear could contribute to the expression rather than stand in the way of it.

More: Instagram

A face shaped by a found object

A conventional canvas usually keeps its support in the background of the image. A painted can makes that support harder to ignore. Its outline, opening and dents remain part of the thing being encountered, so the drawing and the object are read together. A crushed surface can suggest a tilt or a posture before any painted detail has supplied an emotion. The artist’s intervention gives those accidental features a different kind of attention.

When the container becomes a character

That is what separates the appeal of the work from a simple demonstration that almost anything can be painted. The chosen object has already contributed something. Its shape helps establish the character, while the face changes the apparent significance of that shape. A piece of packaging can begin to seem vulnerable, curious or companionable without ceasing to look like a piece of packaging. The two impressions depend on one another.

Links from the 2019 feature: Instagram

The surprise of finding art

Leaving work to be discovered changes the story of a picture as well as the place where it is displayed.

In a gallery, a visitor generally arrives expecting objects to deserve attention. A discarded can has to overcome a different first impression. It belongs to a category that a passer-by may have learned to overlook. The painted face interrupts that expectation, offering a reason to stop and reconsider something small. This does not mean every finder will respond in the same way. The openness of the encounter is part of what makes the street setting distinctive: appreciation cannot be assumed in advance.

The early story of gallery refusals gives that choice a practical background. It is tempting to reduce an artist’s career to a single moment of inspiration, but the account describes several decisions working together: continuing to paint, finding less expensive supports and placing finished work where an unexpected audience might meet it. The Banksy stencil belongs to that reported sequence. It should not be made to explain every later direction in My Dog Sighs’ practice, or treated as a substitute for the artist’s own decisions about material and expression.

The photographs preserve one stage of an encounter that is otherwise tied to a particular object and place. On a screen, the painted face may be the first thing that attracts attention. In the street, the surprise may begin with recognising the container and only then noticing its expression. Both routes lead back to the same small transformation: a familiar piece of everyday waste has become worth looking at again. The work gives that change a personal scale, asking for a moment of attention through a face rather than through a grand declaration about the material.