Sep 13

Mike Edwards

Mike Edwards is a contemporary painter who has exhibited extensively in London and Brighton, England. Recent exhibitions in England include galleries such as Enter Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, Auction Collective and solo shows at Phoenix Art Space and The Contemporary. Mike’s art remains in the collections of Sir Bradley Wiggins, Imelda May, and the late publisher Felix Dennis. David Bowie signed Edwards’ unique typographic portrait of Aladdin Sane for charity and Mike’s portrait of Lord Attenborough is on permanent display at The Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts located in the University of Sussex. Mike Edwards is currently the subject of a biographical film by an independent filmmaker graduate of the New York Film Academy.

The paintings are splatters and geometry of bright neon lights reminiscent of retro New Wave aesthetics and conveying punk rock and cyberpunk fashion. To describe these works as pop art would be inaccurate as they convey a counter-culture application through aggressive smears and asymmetrical forms. The works look like they could be the backdrop of a David Bowie, Blondie, The Buggles, A Flock of Seagulls, or Sex Pistols music video with their hot pinks, deep blacks, neon luminosity, and high contrast compositions.

Imagine strutting down the streets of a hot summer night in late 1970’s or 1980’s Miami or London, these works reflect the vintage moods of such an era with an urban grit and striking surfaces. From complete abstractions to images resembling strobe lights, palm trees, lightning bolts, and arthouse wall text, the paintings convey a musical and lyrical soundtrack and rhythmic compositional dance in sudden variation of tone and asymmetry. These energized paintings reflect notions of glamour and even futuristic aesthetics as if flying cars emanated neon lights from rapid motion.

Untitled (pictured above) remains one of Mike’s most contrasted paintings. With a minimalist neutrally painted background and what appears to be a single splatter of black paint, a neon strobe light ecstatically embraces the vertical composition and surrounds the splatter with curvature and linearity. Conveying a signature-like effect, the urbanized painting contains energy as if pumping blood and life into a deceased corpse. The gray neutral background being an allegory for the inanimate, the black splatter reflecting resurrection, and the neon strobe representing life. Perhaps not Mike’s intention but the painting has connotations and allegories between the relationships of life and death.

Mike Edwards can be described as an exciting artist who creates works with retro, counter-culture, musical, symbolic, and even futuristic aesthetics. These dynamic paintings breathe life into the viewer and express a heightened sense of stimulation through angularity, splatters, and provocative color balances. With a sense of youthful neon spirit combined with arthouse aspects incorporating handwritten text against wall-like surfaces followed by unpredictable linearity, Mike Edwards provides plenty of thrills for a curious audience.