Marcus Harvey Born in Leeds in 1963, Harvey was one of a group of artists who graduated from Goldsmith’s College, London, in the late 1980s. For his first solo show in London, held at White Cube in 1994, Harvey exhibited paintings also based on photographs. These ‘Readers’ wives’ paintings took their subjects from pornographic sources, their imagery defined by a black line juxtaposed against an intensely painterly ground that in passages becomes suggestively physical in its impasto. Marcus Harvey’s painting ‘Myra’, which was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in September 1997 as part of the exhibition ‘Sensation’ resulted in unprecedented national and international media attention. Based on the portrait of the child-murderer Myra Hindley – an image that has been repeatedly reproduced by the press since her conviction – the monumental 13 x 10½ ft monochrome painting is entirely composed from a child’s handprints. As the artist has said, ‘The whole point of the painting is the photograph. That photograph. The iconic power that has come to it as a result of years of obsessive media reproduction.’

It was the 11ft by 9ft portrait of Myra Hindley, remember, made out of stencilled children's handprints (and now on show in County Hall) that caused the very foundations of Burlington House to tremble and four distinguished Royal Academicians to resign their posts in disgust.

Myra Hindley's evil face inspired sick artist Marcus Harvey to paint her portrait using thousands of children's handprints,' enthused the Daily Star and the Sun while box office boomed. Splattered with ink and eggs and subsequently shut behind glass, Myra appeared to exhaust Harvey's creative stamina and output for years afterwards.

Last spring, he was back - albeit in New York, not London. In his first one-man show for six years, Harvey showed five new pieces at the Mary Boone Gallery in Chelsea, including two archly contemporary still lives of the detritus left after an Ann Summers party; enormous dildos, handcuffs and other brightly-coloured sex toys of various function sitting luridly among the pizza crusts, dirty plates and overflowing ashtrays of the evening before. A large pink dildo thrust into a fruit bowl containing bananas - conventional still life subject matter rudely spiked by the apparatus of an intimate and very private sex life - is mildly amusing of course (but not, you'll be glad to know, remotely shocking).

When Myra Hindley died, Harvey's infamous work was mentioned in almost every obituary, every news story. Now, perhaps, the notoriety of this early piece laid to rest alongside its malevolent subject, he can get down to the business of making more art, and showing it here.

Two protesters in separate incidents within hours of each other attacked Marcus Harvey's controversial portrait of Myra Hindley, one of the notorious moors child killers, imprisoned for life in l966 for murder and torture of 5 children.

Artist, Peter Fisher was the first to attack the 11 ft by 9 ft painting, throwing red and blue Indian Ink over the work. Jacques Role, also an artist threw eggs at the work (which was still apparently on display after the first attack) until stopped by an off duty police officer.

Role, who managed to throw "three or four" of the six eggs brought to the show said of the attack ' There are moments when you must do something about it. Otherwise next time we will have even worse, we will have a picture of the actual torture,'

The painting was put back on display approximately two weeks later and exhibited behind a glass case and flanked by two guards.

Interestingly, 2 years later when the same exhibition opened in New York, this image did little to rile the public. Rather Ofili's portrait of the Virgin Mary was on the receiving end of an attack by an outraged christian and a jar of white paint.

Since 2000, Harvey has created a series of door panel paintings, which depict domestic vignettes in a photorealist manner through the  distortion of a patterned glass set within a single or double door frame. In After Hopper, the viewer is offered a peeping-tom perspective of a man reading in bed and a woman dressing, a typical dark motel scene as painted by Edward Hopper in the 1930s. Another door panel suspiciously depicts a self-portrait of the artist with a meat-cleaver in his hand and covered in blood, as if caught in the act of an unimaginable atrocity.

Combining the unlikely styles of hard-edged graphics and painterly abstraction, Marcus Harvey’s Golden Showers draws from the aesthetic associations of expressionism and pop. Capturing the violent energy of De Kooning’s women, Harvey sets his canvas in the field of psychological self-consciousness, pervading the image with unrestrained emotion. Overlaid with a sexy stylised outline reminiscent of Patrick Caulfield, Harvey’s painting balances between idealised glamour and guttural instinct.

Taking his images sources from home-brew porn magazine Reader’s Wives, Marcus Harvey’s early canvases use paint as a means to explore the concept of excess. Replicating smutty urgency, Harvey’s Julie from Hull is bathed in frenzied gushy pink, a dirty allurement promising fleshy debauchery. Using a heavy black line over a thick expressionist ground, Harvey’s graphic form becomes both container and barrier of over-indulgence, the promise of gratification monumentalised and ever distant

Through his paintings Marcus Harvey explores pornography as a phenomenon of frustration. Using the instantaneity of paint, Harvey builds his canvases up as raw explosions, his brushwork capturing the urgency and sheer physicality of sexual fixation. Tracing over his gestures with images taken from top-shelf zines, Harvey places his desire in the teasing world of pop, uniting detached graphic image and aggrandised emotion as a parody of media portrayal and Pavlovian response.

Depicted with the stark outlines of graphic arts and instructional manuals, Marcus Harvey’s x-rated reproductions become neutral instigators of interpretive response. Empty and generic, they offer sex as a commodified banality onto which all manner of fantasy is projected. Placed over highly emotive backgrounds, Harvey activates these images with tragic-comic fervour. The crotch-shot in Reader’s Wife 1 conveys all the excitement and pathos of amateur porn: clumsy, naïve, and filthy to the core, Harvey’s painterly response both mimics and exceeds pornographic expectation.

Harvey exhibited paintings also based on photographs. These ‘Readers’ wives’ paintings took their subjects from pornographic sources, their imagery defined by a black line juxtaposed against an intensely painterly ground that in passages becomes suggestively physical in its impasto.

the gallery is dominated by three large (61/2 x 16') still lives of dildos, vibrators, and the detritus of what is known in England as an "Ann's Summer Party." This, it was explained at the gallery, is like a Tupperware party, but not for Tupperware. Who knew? So, amidst the sex toys one finds pizza crusts, glasses of wine, stacked plates, and full ashtrays. This holds for two of the paintings; a third offers an overhead view of a bureau, with two top drawers open to reveal what one assumes were purchases made. This painting offers a key to the formal and semantic arrangements of the paintings, revealing visual interest far more considerable than the initial shock value, such as it is. One drawer is dominated by the warm tones and vertical shapes of the toys, the other by the cool rectangular shapes of folded clothes. The bureau top, seen from above, establishes a mediating art historical reference. The painting on the wall opposite is similarly divided roughly down the middle by two pillars of a black and a red sex toy-looking totemic with pleasure-delivering animals perched near the base of each. The division of the painting suggests a whimsical opposing of social spheres, with a good deal of messy spillage from one into the other: on one side the domestic references of stacked dirty dishes and party leavings in cool tones, on the other dirty (in another sense) sexual apparatuses in hot reds and pinks. On the far wall, toys shaped like corn and cucumbers rhyme visually with more traditional still life objects. Round shapes of handcuffs tuck up against rounded pizza crusts; a dildo penetrates the tranquility of a bowl of fruit. The paintings are about lots of things: the publicity of the private, the commodification of sex, the tedious monumentality of the erotic in the media age (acres of flesh in Times Square ads, and the like). And the paintings, one suspects, are about silence and self-censorship, or the evident preference of those visiting the gallery not to say much about what they are seeing. No matter how much we are inundated with sexual display and reference in ads and media, sex tends to reassert its mute privacy when we encounter its paraphernalia, its alien thingness as opposed to purely social immanence…So here is the it of sex-dildoes of all sorts, handcuffs, vibrators-as opposed to the id, like big farm animals fattening on waves of lascivious interest. For most of us, it is somewhere in between, but the show is well worth a visit to find out.

Young British Artists or YBAs  also Brit artists and Britart  a group of conceptual artists, painters, sculptors and installation artists derived from the Sensation Saatchi Gallery Exhibition.

Marcus Harvey Myra Hindly painting on rolled canvas painted with artists acrylic paint. Hand painted copy.

30" x 40" canvas

R.R.P. £179.99

SALE Price £97

Marcus Harvey Readers Wife Painting Art Sale painting on rolled canvas painted with artists acrylic paint. Hand painted copy.

30" x 40" canvas

R.R.P. £179.99

SALE Price £97

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Tips for Buying Art at Gallery or Fair

Knowing what or where to buy when you initially start collecting original art, particularly if your budget is limited, can be daunting.  The criteria by which you choose an artwork, especially if it is your first, may well be far less defined than for any other purchase you have ever made – it is more likely to be driven by emotion. With a huge array of all types and styles of art there is almost certainly work available to suit most pockets.

Here are some tips on how to make the most of your art shopping experience.

Preparation

Preparation is key to anything. Take some time to think about your requirements before you buy.  Have an idea of the space you are considering for the work and make sure you are familiar with colours, the degree of daylight and general surroundings of where it is to be placed.

Look

Pick up a stand plan or catalogue at the gallery entrance and take some time to look around a few times, making notes on galleries and pieces that you like, and the essentials, including artist, size and price.  See if there are any postcards or pictures of the work that you can take away with you for reference.  

Ask

The gallery owners are delighted to answer any questions, so don’t be afraid to ask them!  When you are considering a piece of work, ask about the artist’s history for example, if their work is included in any major collections or if the artist has won any public art prizes.  Ask how the work was made, the measurements of the piece, and what forms of payment are available – many galleries now offer interest-free instalment schemes.  If the piece that has caught your eye is out of your budget, ask if there are any other works by the same artist, or in a different medium. Original prints, such as screenprints and etchings, are a great entry-level option, and can also offer the chance to buy work by a big name.  If you are unsure about a piece, ask if you can reserve it for an agreed amount of time.  Remember, the dealers are there to help you.

Look again

Take some time out to have a coffee or glass of wine and think through your choices.  Consider a work’s liveability and the space you have in mind for it.  Once you have considered your options, return to your shortlist of pieces with fresh eyes and a clear mind.   If you feel you need for some further thinking time,you can even go home, look at the space again, and imagine your soon-to-be purchase there. Beware though - you don’t want to be left broken hearted if you return to find the piece that caught your eye has been taken by someone else!

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