JAMIE REID
Untitled 05 2000
Untitled 06 2004
Untitled 03 2005
Untitled 01 2007
Jamie Reid’s work
A long standing practice as an artist positions Jamie Reid firmly within a tradition of English radical dissent that would include the likes of William Blake, Wat Tyler and Gerrard Winstanley. Like them, the work of dissent must offer, out of necessity, other social and spiritual models and Reid’s practice is no exception. Known primarily for the deployment of Situationist strategies in his iconic work for the Sex Pistols and Suburban Press, the manifold strands of his art both continue that work whilst showing us other ways in which we can mobilise our energy and spirituality. It is this dialectic between gnosticism and dissent that lies at the heart of Reid’s practice and makes him one of the great English iconoclastic artists.
As well as representing the Jamie Reid Archive, we are very pleased to present many previously unseen paintings on canvas and paper from the past two decades. This painting work has been an ongoing practice for Reid since art school, and has often been a quiet compliment to the louder graphic work, each supporting the other. Having spent a decade working in paint and screen print on the interiors of the Strongroom Studios in Shoreditch, London (where he kept a studio for many years), Reid became increasingly intent in exploring the results of a much more subconscious practice than the classic cut and paste with a scalpel and ruler on a cutting board. Reid has often stated that his painting work emerges with no plan. Even very complex arrangements begin without any forethought. The colours and marks channel themselves through the medium. They are spontaneous and without subject or intention. Working on his knees in his studio, with colours in an array of plastic cups, often with music or the cricket for company, Reid has found an extraordinarily rich seam. Canvases and works on paper emerge at speed. Literally hundreds of paintings on raw canvas and paper exist, almost all never previously seen. All part of an astonishingly large body of work that defies categorisation and follows it’s own trajectory.
Biography
Jamie Reid (1947-2023) was a British artist and political activist. Reid was raised in Croydon and came from a politically active family. During his time at Croydon Art College, he was involved in the student movement of 1968 where he and Malcolm McLaren organized an occupation of the college. After leaving Croydon Art College in 1970, he co-founded the radical political magazine Suburban Press, where he developed his unique style of cut-up graphics and slogans.
Reid is best known for designing album covers for the British punk rock band the Sex Pistols. These covers featured letters cut from newspaper headlines in the style of a ransom note. The imagery became a defining aesthetic of punk rock, particularly in the United Kingdom. His well known works include the album “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols” and the singles "Anarchy in the UK", "God Save The Queen", "Pretty Vacant", and "Holidays in the Sun".
Reid continued to design album covers for bands such as the Afro Celt Sound System. He also designed the interior of the Strongroom Recording Studio in Shoreditch and continues to engage visually with socio-political situations, such as Occupy, Extinction Rebellion and the Free Pussy Riot movement.
A recent focus was his Eight Fold year series, featuring works of a variety of mediums that are based on the eight festivals dividing the druidic year. He viewed this series as a re-adaptation of his work from the late 60s and early 70s, bringing a new aesthetic to the same themes and fundamental messages.
Past exhibitions include Peace is Tough at The Artificial Gallery, New York, Ragged Kingdom at Museo Civico, Modena, and the Biorama Projekt near Berlin; May Day, May Day at the Aquarium Gallery, London; Out of the Dross-Liberty at Paul Stolper Gallery, London. Reid’s exhibition Taking Liberties: Political Work 1970-2020 opened at Galerie Simpson Swansea and has toured to the Horse Hospital in London, the Civic in Barnsley, Made In Paisley, Scotland, universities in Belfast and Leicester and is currently at the Northampton Museum. Rogue Materials - a career survey of works on paper was published in 2021. His work is included in international collections including Tate Britain, Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Art in Houston. Jamie Reid also actively involved with the exemplary Florence Institute community centre in Toxteth, Liverpool.