THE ROYALLY BIG PORTRAIT
16,000 drawings of the King
Made up the official portrait of King Charles III
To break the world record for the most artists to contribute to a portrait
Which was displayed on the world’s largest digital screen at the Outernet
Visited by 2 million in 8 days
Then exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery
To raise money for BBC Children in Need to help those kids who need it most
MADE WITH PEOPLE DOING COOL STUFF
DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE
"Barnett was commissioned by the BBC to create the Royally Big Portrait, a giant digital portrait of King Charles III that featured thousands of individual portraits of the King drawn by pupils and students from across the UK.""Barnett combined 16,000 sketches in his final piece, which was visited by more than 2 million people in eight days. The final portrait will be hung in the National Portrait Gallery later this year.""The work was unveiled on the world’s biggest digital screen at Outernet London in May this year and was auctioned by Christie’s to raise £52,000 for Children in Need. As far as first shows for artists go, it will be a tough act to follow."Hannah Prevett, The Times, June 22 2023
IF YOU'RE BORED, READ
DULL STUFF ABOUT ME HERE
SEE MY ART
have i got news for you
IF YOU LIKE NEWS (UNLIKELY) AND LIKE MY ART (DOUBLE UNLIKELY) THEN CLICK BELOW TO SEE SOME STUFF WRITTEN ABOUT ME:
WHY AM I DOING THIS?
I'm Sam Barnett. In 2016 I took my young daughters to a playground in San Francisco. My girls joined the pack of kids running riot who were between 5 and 9 years old. I fell into a daydream but was startled awake when the mob of kids began playing 'grown ups' and pretending to work at tech companies. Dumbfounded at this bizarre sight, my body made an involuntary jerk. I did a double take. WTF.I had built tech companies for 12 years and my kids were being brought up in this warped yet brilliant world. Worried that my professional choices in tech were distorting my girls' outlook on the world - I realized I needed to expand their horizons so they could find their own paths.My daughters and I began reading about people who had led remarkable lives. I hoped my girls would be inspired to find their own gifts and passions in life through stories of ordinary people they could relate to, who had shown extraordinary resolve to follow a path that was true to them.Together we painted these remarkable people’s portraits on canvas and 50 foot murals across San Francisco. I secretly hoped that the grit, courage and purpose of these amazing people would magically seep into my girls. I told myself I was doing this as a responsible father - to enable and empower my daughters.Years later I realised that was BS - I was actually doing it for myself. I was unconsciously hoping that I would absorb some of these people’s courage & resolve so that I could break new ground personally, moving away from my life building tech companies to become - what I was too embarrassed to admit - a full time artist.In 2021, I left my life in technology and became a full time artist.
DULL PROFFESSIONAL STUFF
Founder & CEO at Struq.
Personalizing the Internet with AI. Scaled across Europe and the US. Acquired by Quantcast.Chief Product Officer at Quantcast.
Responsible for ~$400m of annual product revenue and some of the most widely used technology tools on the internet.President & Partner at Entrepreneur First (EF).
EF created the first pre-seed VC which invests in the best technology talent to build startups from scratch. EF is backed by the world’s leading tech company founders (Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, The Collison brothers etc).Organized the Guinness World Record: Largest Ever Art Lesson
Broke the record: 70,000 registered - 48,000 attended. Key Learnings here.McDonalds
Fired twice - once for burning buns.Artist
First exhibition: Royally Big Portrait. BBC Children In Need commissioned me to paint the King. I taught kids across the UK to draw King Charles III. We combined all the kids drawings to create one major portrait of King Charles to break the Guinness World Record for the most contributions to a digital piece of art. The record breaking portrait will be displayed on the largest screen in the world (The Outernet) to celebrate the coronation of the King. Christie’s are exhibiting & auctioning my official portrait of the King for BBC Children In Need. The final portrait will be hung in the National Portrait Gallery in late 2023.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT ME
ARE YOU THAT DODGY AUSTRALIAN SAM BARNETT THAT IMPORTED TIGERS FROM THE TIGER KING?
Sorry to disappoint but I am not that Sam Barnett...CLICK HERE FOR FAQs
WHY DOES SAM BARNETT GO BY sb. and why is find.sb on his art?
SAM BARNETT IS A DULL NAME.
The entirety of my name is Sam Barnett. I don't have a middle name. Sam is not short for anything more interesting (Samuel, Samson etc). My sisters have cool & unusual names. I'm just Sam Barnett. That's it. Thanks Mum.THERE ARE OTHER SAM BARNETTS - ONE OF THEM IS SUPER DODGY.
One Sam Barnett is a big actor and has been in some good stuff. There is another bald Sam Barnett who has done some dodgy stuff (son of an Australian politician involved in importing tigers from the zoo featured on the Netflix series Tiger King). I am not him. This dodgy Sam Barnett is a pain in my ass. For my sake (& the tigers), Australian Sam Barnett, please stop doing such daft stuff - you are making all Sam Barnetts look bad (especially the bald ones).THIS SAM BARNETT HAS DONE LOTS OF RANDOM STUFF.
I went to law school (that sucked), was a technology entrepreneur (Struq), big tech executive (Quantcast), venture capitalist (Entrepreneur First) & now an artist dabbling in acrylic, canvas, AI & other weird/cool stuff.I SIGN MY WORK AS SB.
You guessed it, those are my initials. For those that didn't get it:
Sam Barnett = sb.
The initials of the non dodgy, dull named Sam Barnett who is hacking away trying to create art.YOU PROBABLY SAW MY SB. INITIALS ALL OVER A PORTRAIT OF KING CHARLES
That's the Royally Big Portrait of King Charless III that I got super lucky to create with BBC Children In Need, Christies, The National Portrait Gallery & The Outernet (it feels amazing just to write those names!).WHAT IS "FIND.SB"
All the other gazillion Sam Barnett's have bought all the good domains names related to Sam Barnett. I was rather chuffed to buy sambarnett.art - However the domain has sssssooooo many letters! You can't fit it on anything.Trying to find a short domain was hard as they cost mega bucks. After months of looking, I discovered the Soloman Islands have their own Top Level Domain which matched my initials (.sb)! As I had been experimenting with putting people in art, I decided to go with "find.sb" as it was short & cheap. Managed to get the instagram handle too (@find.sb). Twitter was not so kind - find.sb was taken so have a naff handle - Thanks Elon...