Ashley Bickerton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Ashley Bickerton | |
 "Made's Warung" 2006 image courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery |
|
| Born | 1959 Barbados |
| Field | Contemporary Art |
| Training | California Institute of the Arts, Whitney Museum Independent Study Program |
Ashley Bickerton (born Barbados, 1959) is a contemporary artist living in Bali. A mixed-media artist, Bickerton often combines both photographic and painterly elements with industrial and found object assemblages. He is associated the early 1980s art movement Neo-Geo,[1] which includes artists such as Jeff Koons and Peter Halley.
Contents |
[edit] Life
Born in Barbados in 1959, Bickerton is the son of Derek Bickerton, a linguist and scholar of Creole and pidgin languages. His father's research work caused his family to move around the globe every several years. As a child Ashley Bickerton lived in a number of countries across four continents. The family finally settled in Hawaii in 1972. British by birth, Bickerton became a naturalized US citizen in the mid-1980s. He spent 12 years in New York where he established his career before finally settling on the island of Bali in 1993 where he resides to this day.
[edit] Career
Bickerton graduated from the California Institute of the Arts in 1982 before moving to New York to attend the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. After exhibiting for a few years in New York, he was included in a four person show at the Sonnabend Gallery in 1986. The exhibition launched the careers of a quartet of young artists that collectively came to be known as the "Fantastic Four," and includes Jeff Koons, Peter Halley and Meyer Vaisman. These artists formed the core of what came to be known as the "Neo-Geo" movement. Over the last twenty-five years, Bickerton has exhibited his work internationally and is included in public art and museum collections. In the spring of 2006, Bickerton had two simultaneous exhibitions at Lehmann Maupin Gallery and Sonnabend Gallery, both in New York.
[edit] Works
Ashley Bickerton's work has explored issues in contemporary art related to the commidification of the art object itself. Often his objects are grotesque in a self-aware manner and are often a critique of capitalism.
[edit] Early constructions
In the 1980s Bickerton made a series of works which resembled packing cases and crates, covered with corporate logos.[2] His early work is noted for its display corporate logos and constructions titled as either "Self-Portraits," "Commercial pieces," or "Anthropospheres." They are typically Assemblages of technological or industrial materials with the inclusion of found elements and screen printed iconographic images. These seemingly functional objects without clear purpose are often covered in various logos, technological signage, and codes. His artwork "Abstract Painting for People 4" made in 1987 in now included in the collection of François Pinault as of 2007.
[edit] Singapore Tyler Print Institute
Produced for the Visiting Artists Program at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute, these works are multi-layered and include lithography, cast papers and monoprints. Some measure two inches deep, with etched pits creating the illusion of black holes around the edges, others feature embroideries, drawings, furniture and photographic montages, which have been digitally manipulated. In these works, Bickerton creates elaborate and disturbing visions through his use of hyper-real images and desolate environments. In these landscapes, idealized representations of women and children gather, while eerie green men with tropical flora antennae appear to emerge from nearby pools of water. In other works, the women and children are absent, leaving the partially submerged creatures to take center stage. Bottles, toothpaste tubes, and paint cans are among the objects pinned to these landscapes.
[edit] Recent works
Bickerton continues to develop work within his established themes and iconography of tropical surrealism, green headed characters, and Assemblages. His work in 2006 and 2007 has taken the form of large format digital prints and paintings with thick wooden frame constructions with vairous inlays. These elements can be seen in "Made's Warung" 2006 and "Green Head with Inlay 1" 2007.
[edit] Recent exhibitions
- White Cube London 2001
- Sonnabend Gallery 2004
- Lehmann Maupin 2008
[edit] References
- ^ Tim Woods, Beginning Postmodernism, Manchester University Press, 1999, p126. ISBN 0719052114
- ^ Irit Rogoff, Terra Infirma: Geography's Visual Culture, Routledge, 2000, p60. ISBN 0415096154
