British artist Stuart Semple is causing a storm in the London art scene and is already hailed as one of the brightest stars in a new generation of pop artists. Semple’s drawing, painting and printmaking re-articulate pop cultural elements into a personal universe of fear, isolation and nostalgia. He works balance a fabricated mechanized perfection with an emotive painterly surface. Semple records visual contemporary reality, deliberately avoiding either a celebration or criticism of pop culture. Large paintings may feature recognizable products or famous faces combined with day-glo lettering and slogans. Described as the new Jean-Michel Basquiat, Semple finds a place in his work for painterly values and punk to converge.
Semple’s recent series, Lipstick/Vogue takes as its starting point the phenomenon of luxury boutique items and the place they hold in the image-making world. Though the paintings and prints might refer to luxe items splashed throughout a contemporary music video, they are in fact part of a wider critique on how we consume visual items.
Semple held his first solo show in London in 2001 and in 2004 his fame rose meteorically after his controversial show R.I.P. YBAs. The show included a work which utilised debris from the Momart art fire, including burnt fragments from Tracey Emin’s infamous Everyone I Have Ever Slept With tent. Semple generated deadlines again in 2005 when he secretly installed an artwork at the Saatchi Gallery, entitled British Paitning Still Rocks. His renegade mission was a response to Charles Saatchi’s statement that no one would remember the YBAs in the future.
Stuart Semple has exhibited worldwide in both solo and group exhibitions and has featured in biennale's in Mexico, Liverpool and Sao Paulo. He has also curated group exhibitions internationally.
