Edward Ruscha

I visited the Tate Modern the other day while walking down south bank. While wandering around the gallery I found many interesting and beautiful pieces including some work by the brilliant M/M Paris, however that's another post for another time. While walking around the space "artist rooms" kept coming up, this was simply a room full of one particular artists work. One of these rooms was dedicated to Edward Ruscha, his work really stood out to me. He used typography boldly and made messages really stand out using cleverly chosen typefaces along side striking colour or images. Some of his work is pictured above and more can be found at www.edruscha.com, his web site has some amazing work which continues to experiment with typography and language.

My 2 favourite pieces were the top 2 images above. This was due to the amazingly painted landscapes that incorporated intense bright natural colours and amazing scenery contrasted with a very modern, electronic and almost robotic typeface that carried messages about modern society. The pieces are very large in the gallery, perhaps 8 x 8 foot, this gives them a huge impact on he viewer and really draws one in.

In my opinion his work offers an interesting take on how typography and language are used and how they can be used along side images or colours to enhance a message.