MARCUS HARVEY

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shown courtesy The Saatchi Collection and White Cube

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2005        Marcus Harvey, Mimmo Scognamiglio, Naples The Führer's Cakes, Galleria Marabini, Bologna 2002        Marcus Harvey, Mary Boone Gallery, New York Marcus Harvey, Vedovi Fine Art, Brussels 1996        Marcus Harvey, Vedovi Fine Art, Brussels 1995        Marcus Harvey, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York 1994        Snaps, White Cube, London 1993        Marcus Harvey, Cohen Gallery, New York GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2005        London Calling. Young British Artists Criss-Crossed, Galleri Kaare Berntsen, Oslo 2002        Closer, Standpoint Gallery, London 2001        Happy the World so Made, The Nunnery, London 2000        MoMa. A Thick Bloke Kicking a Dog to Death, The International 3 Summer Fête, Fairfield, Manchester Sex and the Britsh,         Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg; Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris Out There, White Cube2, Hoxton, London 1999        Now It's My Turn to Scream. Works by Contemporary British Artists from the Logan

Julie From Hull
1994
  oil and acrylic on canvas  
244 x 244 cm
Taking his images sources from home-brew porn magazine Reader’s Wives, Marcus
Harvey’s early canvases use paint as a means to explore the concept of excess.
Replicating smutty urgency, Harvey’s Julie from Hull is bathed in frenzied gushy
pink, a dirty allurement promising fleshy debauchery. Using a heavy black line over a
thick expressionist ground, Harvey’s graphic form becomes both container and
barrier of over-indulgence, the promise of gratification monumentalised.

My Arse is Yours
1993
  oil on canvas
  213 x 213 cm
Through his paintings Marcus Harvey explores pornography as a phenomenon of
frustration. Using the instantaneity of paint, Harvey builds his canvases up as raw
explosions, his brushwork capturing the urgency and sheer physicality of sexual
fixation. Tracing over his gestures with images taken from top-shelf zines, Harvey
places his desire in the teasing world of pop, uniting detached graphic image and
aggrandised emotion as a parody of media portrayal and Pavlovian response.