Ed Ruscha is an American artist who boasts an impressive career spanning six decades. Through his photography and oil paintings, Ruscha explores the banality of modern life and the barrage of information and images that we’re fed on a daily basis.
Ruscha’s distinctive brand of California Pop Art combines influences from advertising and popular culture, with the element that has come to define his oeuvre – text.
Via superimposing amusing turns-of-phrase over landscapes and fields of colour, the artist elevates his chosen words and statements into the star of his work. The result is a low-key humorous style that wavers between the mundane and the philosophical.
His large body of text-based paintings poke fun at the type of language and buzzwords one might overhear in fancy restaurants or business meetings. He is also lauded for his black and white deadpan photography capturing life in America, primarily his adopted home town of Los Angeles.
