Singer Ed Sheeran’s singles topped his singles chart and sold out the stadium worldwide, and now he hopes to expand his production to include artworks as dubious as Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings.
Sheeran is now showing his full abstraction at Heni Gallery in London, with its exhibition opening this Friday. Their official title is “Cosmic Parking Lot Painting”, and Sheeran’s foundation also sells their prints for £900 ($1,200) each, $61.1 million less than the most expensive Pollock canvas sold at auction.
50% of the sales of these works will benefit schools in the UK, a reason Sheeran has advocated before, saying education programs are being funded systematically.
He told guardian This week, he has been doing art for many years, but his practice has only begun in the past decade. “I toured back and forth last year and I used a lot of downtime in the UK to paint,” he said. “I run to Soho’s abandoned parking lot, paint, and run home and do it every day until I go back to tour again.”
These paintings are not just similar to Pollock’s art. Most people are made of paint tangles of various colors, and Sheeran makes them by waving a wet brush over the canvas on the floor, just like Pollock himself.
this guardian The article even includes an image of Sheeran, throwing red paint onto one of his canvases. This photo seems to be a purposeful recollection of Hans Namuth’s famous pictures and Pollock movies at work.
But while Pollock’s work is a formal experiment, and his anomaly process is designed to distance his hand from the canvas, Sheeran’s hand doesn’t seem so exciting. Heni’s release told viewers that Sheeran’s paintings were “inspired by celestial patterns” and that the new works “make a living from his well-documented expressionist style of splash painting.”
This release not particularly mentions Pollock. Lavender mist or The rhythm of autumn“Cosmic Parking Lot Painting” is obviously not. It is suspected that Clement Greenberg may be the greatest critic of all time, working on Pollock’s work, and if he was still alive, there would be much to say in Sheeran’s paintings.
At least one high-profile critic has killed Sheeran paintings. Jonathan Jones in guardian. “When painting his light, meaningless abstract mixture, he avoids proper scrutiny and tilts his toes without having to put himself in trouble. Even if he is an amateur, he is a professional.”
