FAILE

FAILE is the Brooklyn-based artistic collaboration between Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller. The name is an anagram of their first project, “A life.” Since its inception in 1999, FAILE has been known for a wide-ranging multimedia practice recognizable for its explorations of duality through a fragmented style of appropriation and collage. While painting and printmaking remain central to their approach, over the past decade FAILE has adapted its signature mass-culture-driven iconography to a vast array of materials and techniques, from wooden boxes and window pallets to more traditional canvas, prints, sculptures, stencils, installations, and prayer wheels. FAILE’s work is constructed from found visual imagery, often blurring the line between “high” and “low” culture. Exhibitions sometimes emphasize audience participation, a critique of consumerism, and the incorporation of religious media, architecture, and archival research into their work.