Screen PDF - Daab

––– Make
a statement
Interview with
Pure Evil
In 1990 PURE EVIL left the Poll Tax Riots of London
behind and went to live in California where he spent ten
years ingesting weapons-grade psychedelics, thinking
about stuff, making electronic music and printing T-shirts.
Inspired by skateboard culture and the West Coast
character graffiti of Twist he returned to London and
picked up a spraycan and started painting weird fanged
vampire bunnies everywhere.
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You opened the Pure Evil Gallery 2007, it’s situated in the
heart of Hoxton, London. What was the motivation to show
street art and graffiti-influenced work in a gallery context?
I had worked on a Santas Ghetto show before opening
my own space. Santas Ghetto was a yearly event where Banksy
and Co. took over an old shop and turned it into a gallery. It
was a lot of fun. I decided to do something like that permanently,
also based on Aaron Rose’s ALLEGED gallery that was in
New York in the 90s. It was a simple idea and was an easy
way to ease into running a gallery proper.
Are there certain pieces that you could/should never
show in the gallery space rather than on the street?
No I don’t think so. maybe only pieces that were
completely HUGE that wouldn’t fit in here.
The name Pure Evil is related to an experience in childhood:
you killed a rabbit and imagined its ghost returning to haunt
you. What is your philosophy behind Pure Evil and how has
this spectral rabbit influenced your work and life? Does
your creative work often have an autobiographical influence?
I like to explore the darker side of the wreckage of Utopian
dreams and the myth of the Apocalypse, a belief in the lifechanging
event that brings history with all its conflicts to an
end. I’m into dead things, dead celebrities and dead pets. Its fun
to channel all that dark stuff through my artwork, people say
I’m a pretty mellow guy and it’s probably due to my art catharsis.
We would love to talk with you about the Pure Evil Ethos.
It reads like a manifesto: “We are opposed to seeing artists
as a commodity.“ Please can you elaborate on this idea?
I don’t want to have to think “Is this artist going to make
us a profit?” or “This guy’s art exhibition has to sell sell sell.”
Because I am making ok money selling my own art, then it’s
not a prerogative to do shows that people are going to buy,
its more important to show art I believe in. Right now we have
a show with loads of willies and pussies in it. It’s a hard sell.
“No conceptual artists or poseurs”, “No curators allowed
in the building they will be shot on sight”.
How do you select artists to present their work in the gallery?
I spend a lot of time online looking at artist’s websites, and
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