Status Factory
The Art of Ron English
Opening Reception: Friday, November 12th 6:00pm -10:00pm
Orange Coast College - Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion
2701 Fairview Rd., Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Parking in Lot D9 (Off Merrimac Street)
The Orange Coast College Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion in collaboration with Opera Gallery and Hurley presents Status Factory, a surreal assemblage of over 100 artworks by Ron English. This highly interactive exhibition traces the arc of English's most ambitious themes across mediums.
One of the most prolific and recognizable artists alive today, Ron English has bombed the global landscape with unforgettable images, on the street, in museums, in movies, books, television, and album covers. English coined the term POPaganda to describe his signature mash-up of high and low cultural touchstones, from superhero mythology to totems of art history, populated with his vast and constantly growing arsenal of original characters. Ron English's art, whether in paintings, billboards, murals, or sculpture, blends stunning visuals with the bitingly humorous undertones of America's Premier Pop Iconoclast.
Born in Illinois, Chicago in 1959, Ron English paints, infiltrates, reinvents and satirizes modern culture and its mainstream visual iconography on canvas, in song, and directly onto hundreds of pirated billboards. English exists spiritually somewhere between a cartoon Abbie Hoffman and a grown-up, real-life Bart Simpson, delivering a steady stream of customized imagery laden with strong sociopolitical undertones, adolescent boy humor, subversive media savvy, and Dali-meets-Disney technique. Dedicated to finding the sublime in the everyday and breaking the momentum of the didactic approach to art and life, English offers up an alternative universe where nothing is sacred, everything is subverted, and there is always room for a little good-natured fun.
