Art Miami 2018
Installation Views
Maddox Gallery will returned to Art Miami for the second-year operating booth (AM224), featuring works from many of its renowned artists including Richard Hambleton, David Yarrow, RETNA, The Connor Brothers, Niclas Castello, and Bradley Theodore. Maddox Gallery will also display select pieces by Harland Miller, best known for his satirical paintings of reimagined Penguin classics.
In each generation, an artist emerges who has the potential to become iconic; New York lays claim to many of them – Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat – and now, Bradley Theodore has emerged as an artist with the potential to join this list of famous names.
The London-based gallery has rapidly expanded to include three Mayfair spaces, a gallery on Westbourne Grove, a European outpost in the luxury Alpine ski resort of Gstaad, and for the first time, a physical space in the U.S. market. In October 2018, the cutting-edge gallery celebrated the opening of Maddox Gallery Los Angeles marking their sixth location globally and their first in North America.
The gallery will dedicate a substantial section of the booth to pieces by the late Richard Hambleton, recognized as the “godfather” of street art. Hambleton was an American-Canadian street artist best known for his recurring motif of a black-silhouetted figure referred to as the Shadow Man. During the booming art market of the 1980’s, Hambletonbecame one of the leading figures of a group that emerged from the downtown New York City art scene including Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Hambleton, along with his contemporaries, painted directly on the streets of New York. He described the ominous shadows as representing “watchmen or danger or the shadows of a human body after a nuclear holocaust or even my own shadow.” At the height of his fame, critics revered Hambleton as a definitive American Pop-Expressionist artist.
David Yarrow will be in attendance this year and unveiling captivating new pieces. Yarrow is the world’s leading wildlife photographer and one of the highest grossing living photographers. He has built a world-class reputation for producing photographs of the planet’s most remote landscapes, cultures, and endangered animals. His methods for coaxing dangerous animals to come close enough to his lens for the best photograph include researching which animal is most attracted to which scent and then coating his camera in it as he lays in wait.
The gallery will also display works from Los Angeles-based street artist RETNA who holds a global reputation as one of the most prominent and wealthy street artists of our time. His work has featured all over a Louis Vuitton store in Miami, an opera house in San Francisco, Los Angeles’ Olympic bid video and even Justin Bieber’s latest album cover. RETNA is known for his signature constructed script built from Egyptian hieroglyphs, calligraphy, Native American typography, and traditional graffiti and he utilizes this distinctive script throughout much of his work.
The Connor Brothers, who will also be in attendance from the UK, will be featuring new works at the booth. The Connor Brothers initially entered the art scene as American twins brought up within an extremist Christian cult known as ‘The Family’, who escaped to Brooklyn where they began creating artwork in order to make sense of the world they had been deprived of. In October 2014, artists Mike Snelle and James Golding exposed themselves as The Connor Brothers. Their artwork has been sold alongside Banksy and Damien Hirst at Christie’s and Bonham’s.
Niclas Castello is a contemporary artist influenced by Pop Art and renowned for his sculpture series of metallic lips titled ‘The Kiss’, his series of Luxury Fire Extinguishers featuring fashion-house labels and Andy Warhol-inspired paintings. Born and raised in East Germany, Castello cites the fall of the Berlin Wall as a major artistic influence on his life as the sudden expansion of his world led to lifelong fascination with and appreciation for color. With his works, inspired by Neo-Pop Art, Neo-expressionism and the Jungle Wilde, he became internationally known within a short time and is represented in reputable collections in Europe, the USA, and Asia.
Bradley Theodore is a visual artist born in Turks & Caicos, raised in Cuba, and now resides in New York City. Theodore will be in attendance sharing more of his signature Dia de los Muertos style which is instantly recognizable as well as his energetic use of color, bold paintbrush strokes and stripped-back skeletal figures. Theodore’s ongoing exploration into the human condition is reflected in his latest collaboration with PUMA. In honor of the Suede’s 50th Anniversary, Theodore gave the classic sneaker his signature treatment – with rich patches of color, a hand-painted feel.
