Harry Pye is an artist, writer and event organiser. He was born in London in 1973. He completed a foundation course at Camberwell School of Art in 1991. He then studied printmaking at Winchester School of Art from 1992 to 1995. In his second year he stopped painting and printmaking and began making films. His first films were interviews with artist and tutor Bruce McLean. He has interviewed many other artists such as The Chapman Brothers, Wolfgang Tillmans and Keith Tyson for various publications including The Face (magazine) and Untitled. He has also edited and published numerous art based fanzines of his own, most notably, "Harry Pye's FRANK Magazine" which ran from 1995 to 2000. Since 2005 Pye has written a column about the London art scene for the timeless Estonian newspaper, Epifanio (See: www.epifanio.eu)as well as being the editor of The Rebel magazine.
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In May 2000 he was invited to curate an exhibition at Glassbox in Paris, France. The name of this show was, "It May Be Rubbish, But It's British Rubbish". In 2002 he curated a show at The Bart Wells Institute in London Fields called, "Viva Pablo". (Reviewed by Fisun Guner for the Metro Newspaper, Thursday, August 29, 2002.) A year later he organised a group show with 100 artists called, 100 MOTHERS which took place at The Oh Art Gallery in The Oxford House of Bethnal Green and then toured to the North Edinburgh Art Centre in Scotland. In November 2006 he put together, "For Peel" at the NOMOREGREY gallery in Shoreditch. This exhibition was a tribute to the D.J. John Peel and consisted of more than 60 artists including Jessica Voorsanger, Sarah Doyle and Cathy Lomax all of whom had made work relating to a band or singer that John Peel had discovered or championed. Pye didn't contribute any artwork of his own to these exhibitions. According to press release material he only began making paintings of his own in 2004 having been inspired by a Royal Academy exhibition of Philip Guston and a show about Mathias Kauage at the Horniman Museum which both took place in this same year.
Pye's first solo show took place at Sartorial Contemporary Art in Notting Hill in February 2007. The name of his show was, "Me, Me, Me". As well as more than twenty paintings the show featured a thirty minute video made in collaboration with artist Gordon Beswick and comedy writers and performers Richard Herring and Robin Ince. A review of the private view of "Me, Me, Me", together with images from the night can be found at www.russellherron.blogspot.com/2007/02/harry_pye.
Pye has made many collaborative paintings with other artists including Rowland Smith, Marcus Cope, Kes Richardson, James Jessop, Billy Childish, Frank Sidebottom, Sarah Sparkes, Liz Murray, Geraldine Swayne, and Mat Humphrey. Almost half of the paintings in the "Me, Me, Me" show were collaborations with Rowland Smith who Pye has known since his school days.
In April 2007 Pye won first prize in a competition to paint a portrait of Tony Blair. The competition was organised by The Daily Mirror. The judges were artists Gilbert and George. (Daily Mirror, Thursday, April 26, 2007 pages 20 & 21)
In April 2008 Pye had several of his paintings featured in an exhibition called, "Everyday Life" at The Tom Christoffersen gallery in Denmark. In the same month he had a solo show at The Thomas Cohn Gallery - a 5,500-square-foot (510 m2) space in São Paulo, Brazil. In June Pye curated a group exhibition called "Poetic Licence" at the Crimes Town Gallery in Stoke Newington. The show featured drawings and paintings inspired by poems and visitors to the gallery could only gain entry if they brought with them a poem that had moved or inspired them. Artists taking part in the project included Lloyd Durling, Marenka Gabeler, Marisol Malatesta Mark Mcgowan, John Moseley, and Edward Ward. In September Pye and Rowland Smith exhibited several paintings they had made in collaboration in a show called Fresh Air Machine at a new Shoreditch art space called Calvert 22. The show was supported by the Outset organisation and was part of the Concrete and Glass festival.
In October Pye helped organise a Black History Month exhibition at the Lime Light Gallery in Lewisham. In December Pye helped organise Gretta Sarfaty Marchant's solo show: "Gretta's Progress" in Leeds University. Pye's second solo show at Sartorial was called Getting Better and took place in March 2009. His third Sartorial show was called Values and took place in September 2010. Pye has recently been collaborating with artist Jasper Joffe on projects such as Jasper & Harry's Tate Modern.
http://www.tomchristoffersen.dk/exhibitions/previous/everyday_life/Harry_Pye_biography.pdf www.art-themagazine.com/pages/london11.htm http://www.uncut.co.uk/news/john_peel/news/9027 www.myspace.com/forpeel http://www.kopenhagen.dk/interviews/interviews/interview_harry_pye/ http://www.sarahsparkes.com/pye.htm http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/article/?id=2118 http://www.leedsguide.co.uk/reviewsfull.php?id=9571 http://www.limelightgallery.webeden.co.uk/#/exhibitions/4529184509
Review in Frieze magazine (http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/bart_wells_gang/) Peter Cook Appreciation Society (2006). How Very Interesting!: Peter Cook's Universe And All That Surrounds It. Snowbooks. ISBN 1-905005-23-7
Interview with Harry Pye by Alli Sharma of Articulated Artists