Mixed media on canvas
59 x 55,1 in (150 x 140 cm)

Gully is a French artist born in 1979. Hailing from the world of graffiti and street art, Gully’s work transitioned onto canvas after he discovered the Appropriation movement. His unique compositions telescope diverse genres, art icons and movements throughout art history, diving deep into the original contexts of his images and resituating them within a biting contemporary discourse. Appropriating the classic paintings of Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, Basquiat or Jeff Koons, as well as recent images made famous by street art masters Banksy and Shepard Fairey, Gully ingeniously recontextualizes the familiar to provoke the viewer to rethink the power of an image. In his re-contextualizations of classic images, Gully’s masterful appropriations evoke new meanings informed by conscious experience and challenge pre-conceived associations to the familiar. By removing works of art from the traditionally linear continuum of art history, Gully provokes the contemporary viewer while meditating on the act of perception itself. His striking meta-paintings pay tribute to legends of the art world in facetious scenes of coexistence between art and observer. While playful, his works are a poignant examination of the influence of space, time and spectatorship on the transcendent meaning of a given work of art Influenced by the anonymity necessary to his survival as a graffiti artist, Gully’s identity remains largely unknown. Constantly reviving and recreating his pseudonym to remain “in the present, rather than in the past”, Gully’s cleverly constructed works must speak for themselves. Deriving pleasure from the inevitable stories that abound surrounding the mystery of his identity, Gully remains a prolific yet discerning as an artist, a producer and an exhibitor.