Ella Guru

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For other uses, see Ella Guru (disambiguation).
Ella Guru
Ella Guru

Ella Guru (born May 24, 1966) is an American Stuckist painter and musician living in London. Her pseudonym is taken from a Captain Beefheart song on the Trout Mask Replica album.

Contents

[edit] Life and career

Lil' Ruby, by Ella Guru, 2005.
Lil' Ruby, by Ella Guru, 2005.

Guru was born in Ohio, USA and graduated from Ohio State University. She has lived in London since 1991 and is married to Stuckist artist Sexton Ming. Her daughter Lucy was born in 2004. In 1993, she was number one in the Indie charts with the group Voodoo Queens. Guru was one of the twelve founder members of the pro-painting Stuckists art group, and took part in demonstrations against the Turner Prize outside Tate Britain in 1999. She started the Stuckist web site, which has been key to spreading the movement worldwide (now over 100 chapters in 30 countries). The same year she was awarded "Painter of the Year" by Amsterdam Gay News.

Ella Guru is interviewed by Richard Quest of CNN International during Go West at Spectrum London gallery, October 2006
Ella Guru is interviewed by Richard Quest of CNN International during Go West at Spectrum London gallery, October 2006

Guru is known for her alternative "underground" life style, used to frequent fetish clubs, and has a penchant for transvestites. The subject matter of her work often features such subjects, including many paintings of men and women wearing 1960s style beehive wigs. Although the content is frequently unorthodox, she paints in a "traditional" painterly style, and states that she prefers the National Gallery to Tate Modern.

In 2004, she was one of the fourteen "founder and featured" artists in The Stuckists Punk Victorian held at the Walker Art Gallery for the Liverpool Biennial.[1] In 2006, she was one of the ten "leading Stuckists"[2] in the Go West exhibition at Spectrum London gallery.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ "The Stuckists Punk Victorian", Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool. Retrieved 6 April 2008.
  2. ^ "Go West", The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 29 March 2008.

[edit] Sources

  • Ed. Katherine Evans (2000), "The Stuckists" Victoria Press, ISBN 0-907165-27-3
  • Ed. Frank Milner (2004), "The Stuckists Punk Victorian" National Museums Liverpool, ISBN 1-902700-27-9

[edit] Gallery

Grayson Perry by Ella Guru

Bishi

fan and snake

Snake 4

Female wrestlers

The Forcibly Bewitched

Goodby Columbus

Quentin Crisp by Ella Guru

[edit] External links


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Stuckism
Main articles
Co-founders
Original group
Philip Absolon · Frances Castle · Sheila Clark · Eamon Everall · Ella Guru · Wolf Howard · Bill Lewis · Sanchia Lewis · Joe Machine · Sexton Ming · Charles Williams
Artists in UK
Artists in Europe
Elsa Dax (France) · Guy Denning (France) · Michael Dickinson (Turkey) · Odysseus Yakoumakis (Greece)
Artists in US
Artists elsewhere
Godfrey Blow (Australia) · Asim Butt (Pakistan) · Regan Tamanui (Australia)
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Stuckism opposed to
Artists' names in italics indicate artists no longer in the movement (as of June 2007)
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