PHOTOGRAPHY by PHILIPPE BONAN (c)

To understand a bit about Pure Evil it is illuminating to know that he is a descendant of Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor who wrote the controversial work Utopia and who was later beheaded by King Henry VIII. With this busy background (Sir Thomas was later canonised) it is 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 its conflicts to an end.

In 1990 Pure Evil left the ruins of Thatcher’s Britain for a new life on the West Coast , California USA and became a designer for influential streetwear clothing label ANARCHIC ADJUSTMENT, producing clothes and screenprinting t-shirt graphics and becoming involved in the electronic music scene in San Francisco, eventually ending up a recording artist for ambient record label FAX based in Frankfurt, Germany.

After 10 years in California , influenced heavily by West Coast Graffiti artists like TWIST and REMINISCE he returned to London , picked up a spray can and started painting weird fanged PURE EVIL bunny rabbits everywhere. Pure Evil fell in with the people behind Banksy’s SANTAS GHETTO and started producing prints for PICTURES ON WALLS. He was refused entry back into the USA, and subsequently started plotting and producing dark new prints and artwork in a tiny shed in the Black Mountains of Wales. He moved back to London, debuted his first PURE EVIL SOLO SHOW and from the success of that, opened up his eponymous PURE EVIL GALLERY in a Dickensian old shop and basement in Shoreditch in the East End of London in 2007.

As an artist in the past 5 years PURE EVIL has exhibited worldwide in China, Russia, Mongolia, Brazil, USA and all over Europe, and as an ‘Accidental Gallerist’ He has produced over 50 different exhibitions with emerging and established artists at the Gallery and Inernationally. He produces a monthly radio show and regularly gives workshops and participates in lectures about street art.



Pure Evils ancestry is alleged to include eight saints: Vladimir the Great, Saint Anna of Russia, the Holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb, Saint Stephen of Hungary, Saint Margaret of Scotland and Saint Mathilde together with Saint Thomas More, Humbert III of Savoy and several European Royal Families. He is also a descendant of the Old English Chieftain Ailric, Kings Thane to Edward the Confessor, who held Cawthorne and much of South Yorkshire before the Conquest.

Solo Shows:

2013 Pure Evil Double Exposure Culture Gallery Cape Town South Africa

2013 Pure Evil Nightmare The Hoxton London

2012 Pure Evil Deconstructed Nightmares Pure Evil Gallery London

2012 Pure Evil goes POP! Corey Helford Gallery Culver City USA

2011 Pure Evil Nightmares La Cantine De Faubourg Paris

2011 Pure Evil Nightmares The Scarlett Gallery Stockholm

2011 Pure Evil The Garage Amsterdam

2011 Pure Evil Abel and Baker Gallery Cologne

2011 The Last Good Time Pure Evil XOYO

2011 Pure Evil Solo Pure Evil Gallery

2010 Pure Evil Paris

2010 Strange Girls Pure Evil London

2009 Pure Evil Gallery London

2009 Dark Carnival Choque Cultural Sao Paulo

2009 SoloShow Amsterdam

2008 SoloShow Urban Uprising Sydney

2008 Live East Die Young Ink’d Brighton

2008 Run! The Old World Is Behind You ATM Berlin

2008 SoloShow Electrick Sheep Newcastle

2007 SoloShow FakeSpace Beijing

2007 SoloShow Pure Evil Gallery London

2007 SoloShow Truman Brewery London

2006 55 gallery NYC

Group Shows

2013 Trailblazers Above Second Hong Kong

2012 Urban in Ibiza

2012 Unnnatural Natural History Royal West of England Academy Bristol

2012 Bastard Children of Pop London

2012 Group Show Lebenson Gallery Paris

2012 Pick Me Up Somerset House London

2012 Art Contemporain Urbain Angers France

2012 Quick Moves Mannheimer Kunstverein Germany

2012 Stra-Da Arthouse 59 Cyprus

2012 International Urban Art Stade De France Paris

2012 Pure Evil + Crossie Viennna

2011 Group Show Lebenson Gallery Paris

2011 Somerset House PrintClubLondon

2011 Street art from the Victoria and Albert museum touring exhibition

2011 Blisters Blackout PrintClubLondon

2010 3 exhibition Lebenson Gallery Paris

2010 London Calling Moscow

2010 Paste Modernism 2 Sydney

2010 Tiger Translate Ulaanbaatar Mongolia

2010 Anti Design Festival

2010 Wild Fantasies Stolen Space Gallery London

2010 Bhopal Medical Appeal Phillips De Pury London

2009 1980 Mobil Box Fondation Cartier Paris

2009 A Shot in the Dark Czech Republic

2009 Further Complications with Jarvis Cocker London

2009 Go Get your Shinebox Brooklynite New York

2009 Secret Bllisters London

2008 Santas Ghetto London

2009 The Beautiful and the Canned Brighton

2009 Cruel Britannia Philadelphia

2008 Film Friends Forever London

2009 Urban Myth Culver City CA

2009 Urban in Ibiza

2008 Mutate Britain London

2008 International Arts Belgium

2008 Cans Festival 1+2 London

2008 Stella Dore Sebatian Guinness Gallery Dublin

2008 Not a Penny off the Pay Bristol

2008 Alternativity London

2007 Open Studio London

2007 International Arts Belgium

2006 Santas Ghetto London

2006 International Arts Belgium

2005 Difusor Barcelona

2005 Paris Stencil Project

Lectures:

2009 Beautiful Losers ICA London

2008 Collecting Street Art Tate Modern London

2007 Street Art ICA London

Exhibitions at Pure Evil Gallery

2013 Tizer Solo

2013 Oker Benefit

2102 Pablo Delgado

2012 New York Kings

2012 Everythings going to be ok Tim Head

2012 Metamorphosis Crossie

2012 Can Man My Dog Sighs

2012 Saatchi Gallery magazine launch art and music

2012 Dj Food + Henry Flint The Search Engine

2012 Sugar Rush Young Artists at Pure Evil Gallery

2011 Birth of the Namahage Grady Gordon

2011 Cement Eclipses Isaac Cordal

2011 MadABC MadC

2011 Y’OH / Kids of Grime exhibition

2011 The friends of Tony Romanoff Lucas Price

2011 Shunga Pop FLIP

2011 Marina Fages

2010 Roa Solo

2010 Antonio Breves : art from rio

2010 3 exhibition at Londonewcastle Project Space

2010 From the ground up PANIK

2010 New Paintings ROBBO

2010 NYCHOS at Pure Evil Gallery

2010 Buenos Aires Calling

2010 Culture Shock Choque Cultural

2010 Specter Solo Show

2010 Poster Boy

2010 Remed Solo

2010 Busk Bleach Zadok

2010 The Fantastic 4 Remed Grems Zbiok 3TTman

2010 Fundraiser for Bhopal

2010 Vilchez Solo

2009 Words up ! Dscreet

2009 April fools South Kensington

2009 A Forca da Rua for ABC Trust

2009 Dran Bom-K Jaw Heng

2009 Dran booklaunch

2009 Metamorphosis a solo-show by Gustavo Ortiz

2009 Shannon Crees , Beatrice Brown E.C. Woodard

2009 Prophet or Profit Remi Rough , Part2 , Juice , System

2009 Graffiti Argentina

2008 Mymo Solo

2008 Ged Wells

2008 Happy Monsters Assault Gola Ovni UeiA Tom14 Lolta

2008 Deadbeat Donny Solo

2008 Ozmo Solo

2008 Peripheral Media Projects

2008 Psychedelic Brasil Zezao Highraff Milo Tchais

2008 1980 Crew Paris Barcelona

2008 PANIK Solo

2008 Soozy Lipsey

2008 Twinkle Troughton and Craig Cooper

2008 Tinsel Edwards Solo

2007 Sten & Lex

2007 Joel Clifford

2007 John Uzzell Edwards

2007 Zosen and Kafre

Press:

Pure Evil on THE APPRENTICE

2009 PRESS PAGE

2008 CNN

2008 BBC NEWSNIGHT

2008 TIME OUT

Pure Evil Gallery: Ethos and Principles

• We are opposed to seeing artists as a commodity

• No conceptual artists or poseurs

• No curators allowed in the building they will be shot on sight

• Principles before Profit

• Wear your Politics proudly

• We are an Alternative Ideological Force

• The Gallery should be a Mecca for Independent artists

• We need to have the feeling of exhilaration from meeting an artist and seeing their work..

Pure Evil Gallery is an artist run space situated in the heart of Hoxton, split across an ever evolving and developing Victorian ground floor and Dickensian basement, which has been alive and very much kicking since it’s entry into the East London contemporary art scene in October 2007.

A pioneering force in the contemporary street art world, it consistently demonstrates it’s worth by exhibiting a myriad of young International and British artists as well as staging international shows; most recently in Berlin, Amsterdam, Sydney, Sao Paulo and most notably in Beijing.

PE Gallery is consistently pushing boundaries by showcasing an eclectic mix of art as well as hosting a multitude of experimental film nights, creative workshops and live music sessions.

We pay the artists 75% of sales because we can. We also have our own music production studio in the basement where we produce our own live music which goes straight onto the website for free download as soon as it is produced.

find us at:

PURE EVIL UK ,

108 Leonard st,

London EC2A 4XS.

United Kingdom

020 7729 2866

07805 420 771.