Pure Evil - Street Art [1]
To understand a bit about Pure Evil (real name: Charles Uzzell-Edwards), it is illuminating to know he is a descendant of Sir Thomas More, the English statesman who wrote the controversial work Utopia (1516) and who was later beheaded by King Henry VIII.
Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535).
With this background (Sir Thomas was later canonized) it is perhaps only natural that Pure Evil should explore the darker side of the wreckage of utopian dreams and the myth of the Apocalypse, a belief in the life-changing event that brings history with all of its conflicts to an end.
Apocalypse is a literary genre in which a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a human intermediary.
In 1990 Pure Evil left the ruins of Thatcher's Britian for a new life in California, where he became a designer for influential street wear clothing label Anarchic Adjustment, producing clothes and screen printing T-shirt graphics. He also became involved in the electronic music scene in San Francisco, eventually ending up a recording artist for ambient record label FAX. After ten years in California, influenced heavily by West Coast graffiti artists,Twist and Reminisce, he returned to London, picked up a spray can and started painting weird fanged Pure Evi bunny rabbits everywhere. Pure Evil fell in with the people behind Banksy's Santa's Ghetto and started producing dark new prints and artwork in a tiny shed in the Black Mountains of Wales.
Pure Evil, Tagger Scrum. (Screen print, 2010).
Pure Evil, Why Am I Me And Not You. (Letterpress, 2011).
Pure Evil, Bunny Fingers. (Spray paint and gold leaf on antique children's book page, 2013/2014).
Pure Evil, Is What I See? (Letterpress - screenprint produced for Wings of Desire, secret Cinema Event, 2011).
Pure Evil, Man's Ruin (Two-color screenprint, 2011).
Pure Evil, Darth Typewriter (Three color screenprint, 2012).
Pure Evil, Pearly King in Highgate Cemetry (Six-color screenprint, 2012).
After moving back to London, he dubuted his first Pure Evil solo show and from the success of that, opened up the Pure Evil Gallery in a Dickensian old shop and basement in Shoreditch in the East End of London in 2007. As an artist, over the past five years Pure Evil has exhibited in China, Russia, Mongolia, Brazil, the USA and all over Europe, and as an 'accidental gallerist' he has produced more than fifty exhibitions with emerging and established artist at the gallery and internationally.
Pure Evil, Richard Burton's Nightmare. (Spray paint and stencil on canvas, 2013).
Pure Evil, Untitled. (Double exposure screenprint, five layers, 2013).
J.F.K.'s Nightmare. (Two color screenprint, 2012).
Prince Philip's Nightmare. (Four-color screen print, 2013).
Pure Evil produces a monthly radio show and regularly gives workshops and participates in lectures about street art.
Reference:
[1] M. Smith and A. Cook, People of Print, Thames & Hudson, London (2017).
To understand a bit about Pure Evil (real name: Charles Uzzell-Edwards), it is illuminating to know he is a descendant of Sir Thomas More, the English statesman who wrote the controversial work Utopia (1516) and who was later beheaded by King Henry VIII.
With this background (Sir Thomas was later canonized) it is perhaps only natural that Pure Evil should explore the darker side of the wreckage of utopian dreams and the myth of the Apocalypse, a belief in the life-changing event that brings history with all of its conflicts to an end.
In 1990 Pure Evil left the ruins of Thatcher's Britian for a new life in California, where he became a designer for influential street wear clothing label Anarchic Adjustment, producing clothes and screen printing T-shirt graphics. He also became involved in the electronic music scene in San Francisco, eventually ending up a recording artist for ambient record label FAX. After ten years in California, influenced heavily by West Coast graffiti artists,Twist and Reminisce, he returned to London, picked up a spray can and started painting weird fanged Pure Evi bunny rabbits everywhere. Pure Evil fell in with the people behind Banksy's Santa's Ghetto and started producing dark new prints and artwork in a tiny shed in the Black Mountains of Wales.
After moving back to London, he dubuted his first Pure Evil solo show and from the success of that, opened up the Pure Evil Gallery in a Dickensian old shop and basement in Shoreditch in the East End of London in 2007. As an artist, over the past five years Pure Evil has exhibited in China, Russia, Mongolia, Brazil, the USA and all over Europe, and as an 'accidental gallerist' he has produced more than fifty exhibitions with emerging and established artist at the gallery and internationally.
Pure Evil produces a monthly radio show and regularly gives workshops and participates in lectures about street art.
Reference:
[1] M. Smith and A. Cook, People of Print, Thames & Hudson, London (2017).
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