Berisford Cheetham is a pop art painter and assemblage artist who has exhibited in California in galleries such as Gallery Luna Rienne in San Francisco with a solo show. With an extensive background as a former art director for 25 years, Berisford turned his focus onto fine art with his works selling across the United States and his native London. Berisford describes his take on contemporary art: “What I hate about the art world is how rigid it is. Not the artists, or the art, more the old school gallerist dinosaurs that refuse to see the asteroid”. In essence, he wishes to see galleries focus on integrative mixing of media and varied visual narratives and concepts.
Known particularly for two series, Berisford works with a set of paintings and assemblages known as the It’s It and another series titled Pantone. The It’s It is an almost vulgar display of a mashed-up snack which resembles something in between a cake, a cookie, a mountain of fudge, and ice cream. The way Berisford depicts the It’s It appears like a blob of food amongst the array of deep contrast and bold tones. Such a tasty snack appears to be a simultaneous mockery and celebration of the gluttonous appetite of global society to create such a monstrosity of decadent food. While the Pantone series seems to be a commentary on non-objective art. By infusing text into Mark Rothko-inspired paintings and formatting the image like a design, Berisford seems to suggest and even push non-objective art into a deeper conceptual purpose.
The It’s It series contains subtle variations from one another, usually the difference in tone and text in order to convey new ideas as to what the tasty snack reminds the viewer of. Texts such as ‘Ziggy Stardust’ and ‘cigarettes after sex’ remind the viewer of the pleasure which awaits them if they just eat such a mutant snack. Likewise, the Pantone series becomes formatted similarly as being presented in the same ‘card’-like fashion, with elaborate color-field paintings closed in on a frame amidst white background followed by texts which communicate the mood of the image, such as ‘I love California. It’s so artificial’. In terms of process, Berisford’s works do not appear to be executed with straightforward painting as he appears to incorporate either careful stenciling or printmaking procedures, especially in the portrayed texts.
Hackney Diamonds + Salad Days (pictured above) remains one of Berisford’s strongest works because unlike his other paintings, the particular piece remains clearly an assemblage with the incorporation of collaged prints and salvaged materials. Because of the vintage imagery in the background, the assemblage has conceptual connotations of associating the It’s It vulgarity and decadent, delicious appeal with the innocence and light-heartedness of vintage pop culture icons.
Berisford Cheetham can be described as an artist interested in expressing nuance in his conceptual approaches. Although the variation in his works may be subtle, how he arranges and organizes his display of ideas communicates complex notions of how pop culture both pleases us as well as makes us seemingly numb. His work can be described as both a celebration and mockery of popular cultural icons and locations. Some say in today’s age ‘embrace the decline’, in Berisford’s art, the decline remains part of the advancement in communicating raw messages through symbolism steeped in familiarity and comfort.
