Politicians may have appeared incapable of understanding Brexit this year, but one man has seen through the mess with remarkably clear eyes. Christopher Spencer’s bleak yet hilarious images, posted on Twitter through the account @Coldwar_Steve, have helped him gain a reputation as one of the most perceptive artists of the moment.
Now he has made a specially commissioned work for Guardian readers, creating a Christmas nativity scene, complete with Jacob Rees-Mogg as a “wise” man and Boris Johnson proudly displaying a gigantic slab of tinned ham.
“I like to envisage the Brexit charlatans posited in dystopian scenes of their own doing,” said Spencer. “Boris’s ham symbolises the post-Brexit stockpiling of what the government termed ‘adequate food’. My aim is to prick the pompous, privileged arseholes who’ve orchestrated all of this.”
The work, entitled In the Bleak Mid-Brexit, caps a remarkable year for Spencer, who has seen his art put on display in Liverpool city centre, and even had calls for him to be nominated for the Turner prize.
“Some people were serious about it, too,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to happen, but to even be called an ‘artist’ is still a massive buzz. That’s what I’ve always wanted, but instead I spent 20 years doing shit jobs that had nothing to do with art.”
Indeed, as recently as early 2016, Spencer was struggling with his mental health and operating the @Coldwar_Steve account simply to post humorous images of the actor Steve McFadden superimposed over cold-war imagery. Then, the Brexit vote happened and Spencer realised his calling.
“Watching those results come in was such a devastating moment for me,” he said. “But rather then dealing with it as I’ve done in the past – which would have been drink or drugs or whatever – I channelled it more into my art. I incorporated other characters, so it’s slowly become more satirical and political.”
Earlier this year, Spencer sold a series of Christmas cards and advent calendars to raise money for the charity Mind. “They were a big help to me in early 2016, around the time I started the account. Hopefully it can help other people in a similar situation I was in back then and they can get the level of support that I got to make me better,” he said.
Spencer is already making plans for 2019, with a book of Brexit imagery planned for release around the time the UK is due to leave the EU. He also has a special Christmas message for Guardian readers to go alongside his artwork: “I’d like to wish you all an adequate Christmas.”
To donate or find out more about Mind visit Mind.org.uk
