Adam Neate
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
painter, conceptual artist and one of the best known street artists in the world. He specialises in painting urban art
Urban art
Urban art is a style of art that relates to cities and city life often done by artists who live in or have a passion for city life...
on recycled cardboard, and has left thousands of works in the street for anyone to collect. He is a contributor from the movement in transferring street art into galleries.
Early years
Adam Neate was born in Colchester, Essex and grew up in IpswichIpswich
Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...
, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
. In the mid-1980s, aged nine or ten, he became familiar with graffiti art through a cousin, who was interested in it. Neate watched VHS videos about graffiti, as well as groups such as the Beastie Boys
Beastie Boys
Beastie Boys are an American hip hop trio from New York City. The group consists of Mike D who plays the drums, MCA who plays the bass, and Ad-Rock who plays the guitar....
and hip-hop music. Then he borrowed books like Spray Can Art and Subway Art from the library: he was attracted by the colourful quality of the artwork, which he wanted to emulate.
He did not study painting, but graduated in design at Suffolk College, then moved to London and took a job as a graphic designer at glue London, a digital advertising agency.
Technique
He also took up painting, which he had long wanted to do. Using aerosols and found objectsFound art
The term found art—more commonly found object or readymade—describes art created from undisguised, but often modified, objects that are not normally considered art, often because they already have a non-art function...
, he painted on cardboard boxes, which he collected from the street, avoiding the use of canvas because of its cost. His work can have two and three-dimensional qualities, as he tears the material, builds it in layers and staples pieces together, mainly making figurative images, which include self-portraits and portraits of friends.
Work
He gave away works to friends, but built up an excess and left them wrapped in bin liners outside charity shops as a donation. When he discovered that they were not being sold, but thrown out with the rubbish, he started to leave them in the streets instead, with works leaning on lampposts, doors and wheelie bins, as an open exhibition, which looked "really surreal". He could produce around 20 paintings a night, and around 1,000 a year. Over a five year period, he left thousands of his works in London streets.He had kept away from galleries, but was contacted by Elms Lesters, who wanted to show his work. Neate took up the invitation, but decided to do different work from his street art and develop other techniques and styles. In March 2007, journalist Max Foster
Max Foster
Max Foster is a senior Anchor/Correspondent on CNN International, based in London.-Education:Foster spent most of his childhood in Wiltshire, England where he attended Ridgeway School, Swindon and Dauntsey's School, Devizes...
picked up on Neate's work and was the first to report on him. In August 2007, at Elms Lesters Painting Rooms in London, he had a solo show, which sold out within hours of opening.
Following this he was able to give up his job. In December 2007, his painting Suicide Bomber sold for £78,500 at Sotheby's
Sotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
.
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
, and finishing in the early hours. Work was left in doorways and against shop windows.
Some of the work quickly appeared on Ebay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
with starting prices ranging from 99p to £1,000; Neate had no objection to such sales, and thought it might help some people out for Christmas. He said, "It has always been a dream of mine to do a show around the whole of London, to take over the whole city in one go. I want everybody to be able to see it, but once the pieces are out there I don't mind what happens to them."
The works were screen prints
Screen-printing
Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate...
on cardboard of a man, with stamping, each being slightly different, and protected in a cellophane wrapper; Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
provided the precedent for industrial style production. Neate created the master image in a stencil, and thereafter did not touch the prints, which were made by a professional screen printer. They were rubber-stamped with his signature. Neate wished to overcome boundaries between product, print and painting:
"I’m interested in that Warhol idea of the brands as assisted readymade." He said, "The whole concept of the free art thing was challenging the notion of art as a commodity and its worth in society. Now I’m taking that to another level, testing the viability of separating art from commerce."
Adam Neate: A New Understanding
Adam Neate returned to Elms Lesters in 2009 with 'A New Understanding', which opened on Friday 9 October.The exhibition saw Neate further develop his 3D paintings and search for how to portray a 4th dimension.
Influences
He cites his influences as his wife, Waleska, New York graffiti artist, Daze, and PicassoPablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
. He is a pioneer of a radical new movement, which shows street art in conventional art galleries. His work has gained recognition from the National Gallery, the Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
, and the National Portrait Gallery. He has expressed an interest in exploring sculpture and photography, as well as in travel to America and Venice.