Collection: Danny Pockets

Danny Pockets 05.11.64 -12.03.18

Danny Pockets’ work is an aggregation of forms and ideas that
transcends the material from which it is constructed. Employing a variety of media from paint on canvas, recycled materials, acrylics, and chinagraph through to sound and light, Pockets' art emerges from his highly developed studio practice. Influenced by Robert Rauschenberg, who claimed “a painting is more like the real world if it's made out of the real world”, Pockets frequently salvages packaging to create a textured surface for his paint.
Circa 1995, responding to a perceptible change in the urban
landscape around him, he began ‘Congregation’, a series of
paintings of shopfronts, abandoned amusement arcades,
fairground rides and chip shops - the architecture of a people at play. A nation in transition. Emerging from this series are the ‘Houses of the Holy’ paintings:

music venues, dancehalls and clubs. These are Pockets’ best-
known works, his tribute to the cathedrals of our rock ’n’ roll

heritage that have dramatically helped to shape the modern
world; the rapidly disappearing, iconic landmarks at the heart of our culture and the places of magic and legend. Pockets
documents and asks us to observe this beauty before such things are lost forever.

Danny Pockets has exhibited internationally, including at La
Biennale di Venezia (54th, 55th, 56th and 57th) and extensively in the UK, showing work at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, The Royal Academy of Arts and other major galleries. He was awarded a Jerwood prize in 2010 for the exhibition ‘Arcadia’.

His Universal Racket Press has brought printed work to the public since the eighties when he was a student at Chelsea College of Art and the City and Guilds of London School of Art. His publishing aesthetic is driven by the spirit of punk and rave DIY culture, Marvel, DC and the Grand Masters. He has curated exhibitions and live events for over twenty years. His studios are based in St Leonards-on-Sea where he lived with his wife and two of his children. He taught in London and Hastings.
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