Pure Evil On Sale

Charles Uzzell-Edwards is the real name of the man behind the Pure Evil pseudonym. Born in South Wales in 1968 and son of the abstract painter John Uzzell-Edwards, art and creativity have always been around in his life.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Pure Evil left the United Kingdom to live in the United States for a few years, specifically in San Francisco. Influenced by the American West Coast's trends of the moment, he began to develop a deeper interest in the urban cultures of skateboarding, graffiti and electronic music. By then, Pure Evil began working for the clothing brand Anarchic Adjustment, taking the first steps into the world of graphic design and stencil art.

As a multitalented artist who became very involved in the electronic music scene, Pure Evil left San Francisco to spend four years in Berlin where he worked for a music production company named FAX. During this time, he missed London very much and decided to go back there.

Once settled back in the English capital, the first Pure Evil graffiti is seen on the streets. The artist met the people involved with Banksy's Project Santa's Ghetto, and his work begins to have a darker look. Pure Evil then produced his first prints with Pictures on Walls (POW).

Pure Evil has been traveling all around the world, hosting exhibitions in countries like China, Brazil and Russia as well as in all of Europe. Success during these times has been such that it has allowed him to open in 2007 his own art gallery in London's Shoreditch neighborhood. In the gallery, Pure Evil shows his own work as well as that of other artists, and there he finds his space for artistic creativity, both in visual arts and music.

In May of 2012 Pure Evil joined the BBC's TV show The Apprentice and his popularity skyrocketed. Additionally, given the success achieved with his last series, "Nightmares," we can tell that he is an artist of international importance with a very promising career ahead.

With the Pure Evil moniker, the artist explores what he calls his "darkest side." Raised in a Catholic environment where good and evil are two concepts linked to each other, he looks to his critical sensibility to examine the most diabolical side of society and of a world filled with wars and hunger that doesn't seem to have an end.

Browse a collection of Pure Evil original art on 1stDibs.

Perhaps one of the most influential contemporary art movements, Pop art emerged in the 1950s. In stark contrast to traditional artistic practice, its practitioners drew on imagery from popular culture — comic books, advertising, product packaging and other commercial media — to create original Pop art paintings, prints and sculptures that celebrated ordinary life in the most literal way.

ORIGINS OF POP ART

• Started in Britain in the 1950s, flourished in 1960s-era America
• “This is Tomorrow,” at London's Whitechapel Gallery in 1956, was reportedly the first Pop art exhibition
• A reaction to postwar mass consumerism
• Transitioning away from Abstract Expressionism
• Informed by neo-Dada and artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg; influenced postmodernism and Photorealism 

CHARACTERISTICS OF POP ART 

• Bold imagery
• Bright, vivid colors
• Straightforward concepts
• Engagement with popular culture 
• Incorporation of everyday objects from advertisements, cartoons, comic books and other popular mass media

POP ARTISTS TO KNOW

• Richard Hamilton
• Andy Warhol
• Marta Minujín
• Claes Oldenburg
• Eduardo Paolozzi
• Rosalyn Drexler
• James Rosenquist
• Peter Blake
• Roy Lichtenstein

ORIGINAL POP ART ON 1STDIBS

The Pop art movement started in the United Kingdom as a reaction, both positive and critical, to the period’s consumerism. Its goal was to put popular culture on the same level as so-called high culture.

Richard Hamilton’s 1956 collage Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? is widely believed to have kickstarted this unconventional new style.

Pop art works are distinguished by their bold imagery, bright colors and seemingly commonplace subject matter. Practitioners sought to challenge the status quo, breaking with the perceived elitism of the previously dominant Abstract Expressionism and making statements about current events. Other key characteristics of Pop art include appropriation of imagery and techniques from popular and commercial culture; use of different media and formats; repetition in imagery and iconography; incorporation of mundane objects from advertisements, cartoons and other popular media; hard edges; and ironic and witty treatment of subject matter.

Although British artists launched the movement, they were soon overshadowed by their American counterparts. Pop art is perhaps most closely identified with American Pop artist Andy Warhol, whose clever appropriation of motifs and images helped to transform the artistic style into a lifestyle. Most of the best-known American artists associated with Pop art started in commercial art (Warhol made whimsical drawings as a hobby during his early years as a commercial illustrator), a background that helped them in merging high and popular culture.

Roy Lichtenstein was another prominent Pop artist that was active in the United States. Much like Warhol, Lichtenstein drew his subjects from print media, particularly comic strips, producing paintings and sculptures characterized by primary colors, bold outlines and halftone dots, elements appropriated from commercial printing. Recontextualizing a lowbrow image by importing it into a fine-art context was a trademark of his style. Neo-Pop artists like Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami further blurred the line between art and popular culture.

Pop art rose to prominence largely through the work of a handful of men creating works that were unemotional and distanced — in other words, stereotypically masculine. However, there were many important female Pop artists, such as Rosalyn Drexler, whose significant contributions to the movement are recognized today. Best known for her work as a playwright and novelist, Drexler also created paintings and collages embodying Pop art themes and stylistic features.

Read more about the history of Pop art and the style’s famous artists, and browse the collection of original Pop art paintings, prints, photography and other works for sale on 1stDibs.