The Big Issue, The Big Art Auction

“This piece to me deals with the sense of hopelessness that arises from homelessness. With no home a person has no base to build on their life and their dreams this is why the guitar representing life and creativity morphs into a vertebrae and finally a skull. To me the spirit of life is the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll and this is why I’ve included the pieces from the Marshall amplifier.” Joe Rush, 2020.

Joe rush is a 59-year-old London born artist who has made his art form and reputation from working with waste materials and found objects, quickly rejecting the idea of showing work in galleries he has shown his art in huge interactive parties,Festivals and Street paradesIn the early 80s he created the Mutoid Waste co,a travelling body of like-minded people and set off on an Odyssey to teach the world his vision of mutation and creation and use of waste.

His works have ranged in scale from the enormous like building Stonehenge from Russian army tanks on the Berlin Nomansland, and building with aeroplanes and trains ,to the small and sublime characters That he is known for. These are collected by the likes of, Vivienne Westwood, Damien Hirst and Ronnie Wood. He has also worked on a series of exhibitions with Banksy plus running his own shows under the name MuTate Britain He is also the Art director of the Glastonbury Festival.

Joe rush was chosen to build the vehicles and stages for the closing ceremony of the London Paralympic games in 2012, here he worked with Rhianna, Coldplay. At Glastonbury festival joe rush built the giant hydraulic firebreathing Phoenix that emerged on top of the pyramid stage during the Rolling Stones live concert. He has worked in A creative partnership with Vivian Westwood supporting her project climate revolution.

He is responsible for the development of the night areas in Glastonbury festival and also creates the imagery on the pyramid stage and the other stage plus running his own fields namely, Cineramageddon ,A bizarre drive-in cinema with Joes strange and mutated vehicles which was inaugurated by Johnny Depp, and most recently Glastonbury on the sea, a 60 m long Victorian pier thst juts out into the field and brings the spirit of the seaside to the festival.

While less known in the conventional Art world, Joe is notorious on the underground andone of the originators of the concept of up cycling. Of which he is very proud.

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