Ron English
Unveiling Ron English's 'Guernica' collection | 2024

Now known as a true maverick and a trailblazer in the art world, English's journey as an artist began in the late 1970's and has since been a relentless pursuit of pushing boundaries and challenging societal norms.

Merging references to art history with cartoon characters and images from pop culture and big-brand advertising, he has coined the term ‘Popaganda’ to describe his style. Painted with meticulous brushstrokes, his vivid parodies carry undercurrents of meaning. “Still exploring” and “trying new things” through his practice, art for English remains “a big adventure.”

Having seen Picasso’s epic, anti-war mural in person, English decided that he wanted to do “100 versions of it in every way that I could think of.” Taking this art historical icon as his template, he created more playful versions featuring Warner Brothers characters and a Disney cast. Increasingly interested in portraying immersive, character-driven worlds, he has also painted a ‘Star Wars Guernica’ and ‘Punk Skunk Guernica’.

With both adaptations, he has paid tribute to the billboard-like scale and composition of the original, resonating deeply with his own earlier work. Having started his career as a street artist in the late 1970s, English hijacked billboards across America, radically altering big brands’ original messaging by inserting new text, images and cartoon characters in a provocative and early form of ‘culture jamming’.

In ‘Star Wars Guernica’, it is the recognisable cast from George Lucas’ epic space story who appear in his frame: Darth Vader, R2-D2 and Yoda are caught in dramatic battle, echoing Picasso’s action-packed composition. Simultaneously evoking the sprawling special effects of the films, English has created a detailed tableau in which rebel Guernica By Pablo Picasso, 1937 forces between good and evil battle for domination.

Featured Art: ‘Star Wars Guernica’. A Hand-signed Mixed Media Limited-Edition on Canvas by Ron English.

For his ‘Punk Skunk Guernica’, English crafted toy sculptures which belong to a world of his very own imagining: Delusionville. In his words, this strange domain is “like a fairy tale”, which he has not only painted in compelling detail, but written and composed songs about. Split by a river, “every animal that falls down the hole from the surface world has to negotiate their position”, ending up on starkly different sides of this underground realm.

Where Picasso’s mural is a powerful piece of propaganda, Ron English has painted witty, ‘popaganda’-styled parodies of ‘Guernica’ which carry his own statements about today’s culture and divided societies as we advance towards new technologies. Inserting his own irreverent imagery, characters and visual references into Picasso’s template, English’ highly-imaginative phantasmagorical tableaux assume iconic status, while asserting the artist’s own position as a great contemporary master. Dedicated throughout his career to the phenomena of “bringing art back to the people”, English is excited to be launching hand-signed limited edition canvas prints for the first time worldwide with this bold reimagining of ‘Guernica’.

Featured Art: ‘Punk Skunk Guernica’. A Hand-signed Mixed Media Limited-Edition on Canvas by Ron English.