The Artist
Reggie Pedro
Pedro is best known for his record cover artwork for Mercury award-winning band Gomez between 1998 and 1999, for which he won an award for best illustrator within the music industry in 2000. The three prints, Bring it On, Liquid Skin and 78 Stone Wobble, were all taken from work produced for the Gomez record covers and were published in association with the Eyestorm Cover Up show which launched at the Eyestorm gallery, London on 20th April 2007. In 1997, Pedro was commissioned to make illustrations for Arena Magazine. The following year, six months after graduating, he was commissioned by London-based design team Blue Source to make the record and CD cover artwork for Mercury award-winning band Gomez. He was then commissioned to produce another four record covers for the band in 1999, resulting in his work appearing in music stores world-wide and being seen by the mainstream. It is this work that he is most recognisable for today. Pedro’s work depicts the interplay between the representation of characters and his unique painting technique. Although inevitably influenced by his London upbringing, the main subject of Pedro’s work is human emotion, civil unrest, love, boredom, isolation, exuberance and spirituality. Born in 1972, Pedro graduated with a first class BA (hons) Fine Art degree from the University of West England, Bristol. He then went on to complete an MA in Illustration at the Royal College of Art, London, and then went on to show his work widely in the UK and internationally, including in Japan, where he was commissioned to take part in Graffiti Meets Windows and asked to create work based on the ideas of fashion designer Alexander McQueen. Awards included Best Illustrator within the Music Industry for work done in 1999 (2000); winner of the Parallel Media Prize, where he was awarded £4,000 for Best Illustrator at the Royal College of Art (1997); and winner of the Painters-Stainers Award of Excellence at the Royal College of Art (1996). Sadly, Reggie Pedro passed away in November 2007 at the young age of 35. Having worked closely with him earlier in the same year for the Cover Up exhibition and for the publishing of his most recent set of prints, everyone at Eyestorm was deeply saddened by the news and will miss him.
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