Paintception! Woman’s Painting of a Bird Becomes Bizarre Viral Internet Sensation

Paintception! Over the last two weeks, Redditors have been slowly but steadily breaking the internet’s space-time continuum with a series of recursive paintings. The fateful catalyst was posted on Reddit two weeks ago, with a photo of a woman (the Redditor’s mother) holding a painting of a bird, her second painting ever. The photo’s caption, “My mom painted this and said no one would like it. It’s her 2nd painting,” inspired another user to paint a painting of the woman holding her painting, captioned “I painted somebody’s mom,” and mayhem ensued from there.

Paintception

Each successive painting includes a caption chronicling their location in the multi-branched series. The result is a fascinating chain of events that connects online and offline experiences and has gotten more than a few some-time painters back at their brushes. You can follow the progress of this real-life meme via Nick Kapur on Twitter.

Reddit user Matthew Decker shared a photo of his mother, Cindi, holding a painting of an egret that she painted at a local art class in Jacksonville, Florida

Paintception

Take two! Swedish artist Kristoffer Zetterstrand (pictured) noticed the photo on Reddit and decided to paint it for a ‘warm-up’ task, before posting the finished result to the online forum

Paintception

Paintception

Paintception

Paintception

Paintception

Paintception

Paintception

Paintception