The artist discusses his show, Euclid's Porsche, and stumbling into a treasure trove of inspiration. 

Conceptual artist Oliver Clegg was flipping through eBay for subject material when a small Ronald McDonald toy caught his eye. It wasn&rsquo;t the item itself, but rather the nature of the image that nabbed his attention.

&ldquo;It had a very strong light and dark. It looked like a Caravaggio, which I thought was interesting that someone would make a photograph of an object that they&rsquo;re selling for $3.99, and present it in such a beautiful way,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;I was like, was this a deliberate decision? Or was it accidental? I didn&rsquo;t really care what the answer was, because ultimately I thought it was beautiful.&rdquo;

It was an unusual discovery that wound up sparking a project of 150 paintings with a bizarre, humorous, and very specific theme: eBay images of Happy Meal toys.

Courtesy of the artist and Rental Gallery

&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t something [like] this is the concept that&rsquo;s driving me to do it. I was just finding a way to make paintings,&rdquo; Clegg said while walking through Rental Gallery in Chelsea, where 120 of his works are now on view in his first solo show in New York, titled Euclid&rsquo;s Porsche. &ldquo;When [I&rsquo;m asked] why Happy Meal toys? Well, I just kind of lucked upon it. It wasn&rsquo;t like I want to express something about over saturation of imagery in 20th-century life. Yes, you can make these paintings into anything. For me, it&rsquo;s much more about process, and the resource was consistent.&rdquo;

As it so happens, the world of eBay Happy Meal toy sellers is not only a consistent source but a fruitful one. Clegg estimates that he sifted through 300 images, selecting pictures for their tonal qualities, or the composition. Any image that struck him as accidental artistic genius.

There&rsquo;s a humor in the material, not in only elevating amateur photography to art, but in Clegg finding beauty or melancholy&mdash;or anything special at all, really&mdash;in items that are objectively banal. The mass-produced trinkets are not exactly priceless antique treasures.

Building further on the absurdity, Clegg reached out to his friend, the text-based artist Darren Bader, to come up with a title for the show. Bader created about 200, from which Clegg chose &ldquo;Euclid&rsquo;s Porsche&rdquo; out of a hat. The complete list of names, along with all 150 paintings in the project, wound up in the show&rsquo;s catalog.

Clegg&rsquo;s Ronald McDonald toy was never actually delivered to him, not that it matters. The Caravaggio-esque image that initially grabbed him was all he ever really needed.

&ldquo;In a way, these paintings don&rsquo;t belong to me. I was just the kind of conduit who was able to express them in some way,&rdquo; he mused, pointing out that although all of the subjects are Happy Meal toys, the project has nothing to do with McDonald&#39;s. &ldquo;Ultimately there are these artists who have made these pieces and don&rsquo;t care that they&rsquo;ve made them, and don&rsquo;t care that I&rsquo;ve taken the imagery, and don&rsquo;t care that they made something that is potentially beautiful. But they have, and it exists, and so this is kind of a document of that, of my interest in that.&rdquo;

Euclid&rsquo;s Porsche is on view now at <a href="https://www.rentalgallery.us" target="_blank">Rental Gallery</a> in Manhattan and runs through May 25.

Oliver Clegg and the Accidental Genius of eBay Seller Galleries

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