Repurposing mundane objects, Adam McEwen encourages the viewer to abandon their apathy and experience the objects with a fresh sense of purpose. This ability is evident in his 2007 sculpture series ‘Jerrycan (water)’, which appropriates a German military container first designed during World War II. Here, McEwen presents a blue, pressed steel 20 liter jerrycan, whose color and label indicate it as a vessel for storing water. Filling it with water, McEwen calls attention to its function, thus transforming the ordinary object into a representation of World War II.

Much in the same vein as Pop icon Andy Warhol, British artist Adam McEwen (b.1965) appropriates familiar objects and articles of popular culture to shed new light on the symbols that rule our daily lives. A former obituary writer for London’s Daily Telegraph, McEwen made a name for himself when he created obituaries for famous living people, which aimed to expose the celebrity obsession within our tabloid driven culture. McEwen earned his BA in English Literature in 1987 from Christ Church, Oxford, England before moving to the US in 1991 to study at the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA. His work has appeared in numerous shows throughout the world and has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at the Goss-Michael Foundation, Dallas, TX (2012); Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2011); Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY (2011); Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2010); Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, (2010); and Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium (2010).

Selected Public Collections:

Rosenblum Collection & Friends, Paris, France
Julia Stoschek Collection, Dusseldorf, Germany