Ron English

Ron English is born in Dallas, Texas, in 1966. He is an important multidisciplinary artist of the American underground scene since twenty years. Musician, and subversive painter, he has exposed these canvas in the most famous galleries of the world: Museum of contemporary art of Washington (1998), Arte-vista Gallery in Amsterdam (2005), Museum of contemporary art of Paris,… But what has had of Ron English a very famous artist for the general public is not his work in galleries, but his habit to pirate billboards in order to replace advertisements by these own posters. One of Ron English specialities is to reinvent and satirize classical pieces of art in introducing some popular culture symbols (Rock, Science Fiction, industries power…). For example, the characteristics makes-up of each members of the hard rock band Kiss are applied on famous French female portraits (on the right: Ace Frehlev’s -guitarist- make-up).

[...] He has become well-known cause of his talent and his humour; but his work on canvas which has been exposed in galleries is just a little part of the work of this unbelievable painter who has preferred the crime that the peaceful work of art painter The subversive art of Ron English. Ron English has pirated not less than a thousand posters on the last twenty years, replacing existing advertisement by his own hand-painted “subvertisement”. He has become a master in this short-lived art, very short-lived because in habit, posters stay just one or two days. The film director Pedro Carvajal has realized a documentary on the work of English and these friends called “Popaganda, the art and crimes of Ron English”. Popaganda is a word invented by the artist to [...]