the street is our gallery

June 26, 2015 to September 27, 2015

The Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga  presens the first solo exhibition in a Spanish museum on the artist D*Face  curated by Fernando Francés, features 39 works by this British artist including silkscreens, framed stencils, sculptures and paintings on a range of supports.

Wasted Youth constitutes an important retrospective on projects devised and created by the artist over the course of his fifteen years of creative activity. D*Face’s work is influenced by the skate culture of his youth, punk music, Pop Art and street art. D*Face lives and works in London.

Some of the series that reflects the artist’s different interpretations of the English monarch, such as Dog Save the Queen, More Punk than You Punk, Mortus Vivens and Her Royal Hideous. They offer a clear example of how D*Face makes use of the skull in many of his works as a symbol of the fleeting nature of time, thus conveying the message that beneath power and fame lurks nothing but death. In a reference to his pseudonym, D*Face (deface), the artist aims to go beyond the surface and thus reach a more profound level.

For D*Face, the title of this exhibition, Wasted Youth, summarises the elements that all his works have in common as well as the connection between himself and his creations. D*Face considers that the each person’s life is predetermined. “You can look for it, ignore it or simply lose it, but the essential part is there”, he explains.

D*Face grew up accustomed to comments by family members and teachers that he was “wasting” his youth on pointless, degenerate activities and he has now ironically transformed that notion into the title of the exhibition, which he sees as a finger held up to all those who considered that it was more important to pursue a “worn out curriculum” than to follow his own heart and passions.

Location:

CAC Málaga

Calle Alemania, S/N, 29001 Málaga

 

D*Face was born in London, where he now lives and works. He has been one of the leading creative figures in contemporary street art, particularly on the streets of Britain, a country noted for this particular trend due to the proliferation of its brilliant, caustic cultural critics. D*Face began his career making stickers and posters, which he hand-painted and stuck up on the streets of London and nearby areas with the aim of surprising an unsuspecting public. Deploying a range of media and techniques, he makes use of a series of familiar, modified characters to satirise everything that comes within his reach. The term “apocalyptic” defines his work: a mixture of Pop Art fused with the fragility of life.