- British artist Dominic Murphy painted a portrait of President Vladimir Putin with his dog's poop.
- He says a portion of the profits of prints he's selling of the original painting will go to Ukraine.
- "It's quite an immature idea," Murphy told Insider. "But it did the trick."
A British artist used his dog's feces to paint a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now, he says he's received offers as high as $3,900 for the original artwork.
Dominic Murphy, who told Insider he's worked as a professional artist for 20 years, said he came up with the idea to paint a portrait of Putin out of poop after feeling like he needed to do something to raise money for refugees of the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
"I started it because out of anger really, I thought 'how could I get my frustration out of this,'" Murphy, 58, told Insider. "It's quite an immature idea but it did the trick and I decided I would donate money to Ukraine and do some prints."
Murphy, who is based in Welwyn Garden City in the UK, said painting "dark stuff" like President Putin out of poop is a "bit left-field" for him because his usual subject matter is "delicate watercolors of Alice and Wonderland and such like."
"It's not my usual style," he said. "I have a very good friend who's Polish and he does a lot of charity work so I've gotten a lot of information from him. But generally, it was that feeling of frustration of watching it all on telly and not being able to do anything."
In order to source the unique materials for the painting, Murphy said he didn't have to look any further afield than droppings left by his family dog Sibyl in the garden.
"My thought process was basically what is the worst thing I could use as paint, and I thought maybe sick, but it's obvious, it's got to be poo," Murphy said. "I've got a studio in the garden and my wife said can you come down and clear up some of the poo because the dog had pooed in the garden, and I thought, 'Hm, I've got a ready-made paint there."
Murphy said the experience of making the painting "wasn't very pleasant," but to make the process more tolerable, he wore a mask and mixed the feces in with mud and PVA Glue to water it down.
"I varnished it about 30 times afterward so you can't actually smell it," he added. The result is a portrait of President Putin the artist titled "Poo-tin's a S---."
If he was 20 years younger, Murphy said, he would travel to Ukraine to help the military resist the Russian invasion in person. "But I think I'm a bit of a liability now because I'm 58, I'd be a bit more trouble than it's worth," he added.
Prints of the original poop-based painting are currently priced at £40, or around $52, and he said he's been able to sell around eight per day so far. On his website, Murphy said he's will donate a minimum of £20, around $26, to UNICEF's work supporting refugees in Ukraine.
The original piece was sold for £150, or around $196, at his local market, which Murphy said he has some regret about because he's since gotten offers as high as £3,000, or around $3,940, for it.
"I wish I hadn't because I've had much higher offers since then," he said. "But it's still good and I don't really want to make any profit out of misery so I'm giving as much of the money as I can to Ukraine."