In late October, a visit to the National Museum in Cardiff took an unexpected turn. A curious visitor noticed a strange image on a gallery wall and asked the staff about it. To everyone’s surprise, no one knew how it had gotten there. The visitor quickly realized it was an unofficial piece, placed there without permission.
The mystery was soon solved. On October 29th, an artist known as Elias Marrow had secretly put up a framed print in the museum’s contemporary art gallery. Titled Empty Plate, the piece remained on the wall for several hours before being removed by staff. This AI-generated image showed a young boy in a school uniform holding a book and an empty plate. An accompanying label even falsely stated it was “on loan from the artist”.
Marrow explained that the artwork explores themes of hunger and poverty in the UK. The boy’s situation is ambiguous — it’s unclear “whether he waits to be fed, punished or simply forgotten”. The artist said these were “subjects close to my heart”. His main goal was to question how public institutions decide what art is worth showing, and what happens when something from outside the official system appears within it.
To create this work, Marrow first made a sketch himself, then used an AI tool to complete the image. He believes that “AI is here to stay”, and that limiting its use in art would go against his creative beliefs. However, not everyone shares his enthusiasm. The visitor who reported the piece wondered why such a “poor-quality” AI image was hanging in the museum without being properly labeled.
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