Remembering artist Ashley Bickerton (1959 – 2022)

Barbados-born American modern artist Ashley Bickerton has died on the age of 63. 

Bali-based Bickerton’s work grew to prominence within the Nineteen Eighties, and he’s extensively named as a contributor to the Neo-Geo motion – or Neo-Geometric Conceptualism – which first arose in New York. Encompassing artists together with Peter Halley, Jeff Koons and Meyer Vaisman, the motion commented on social isolation and critiqued consumerism, commercialisation, and society within the late-1900s. 

Although recognized with motor neurone illness in 2021, Bickerton persevered along with his inventive pursuits. ‘Life is to be lived and obtained on with, and I’m busy – too busy – for (pity),’ he informed author Michael Slenske in an interview final 12 months. In 2023, Bickerton’s work will likely be offered at Gagosian New York, his first solo present with the gallery. 

Bickerton’s fashion took on influences from pop artwork, op artwork and minimalism whereas difficult structural discourses and questioning what the motion known as the ‘geometricisation of recent life’. Inside the motion, his works drew consideration from an early-career Damien Hirst, who remembers not realizing ‘whether or not he was a painter or sculptor’, and pointing to the indefinable nature of Bickerton’s ever-evolving inventive id. ‘I don’t need to be a slave to a signature figuring out model look,’ he defined final 12 months.