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With only 8 euros in his pocket, 17-year-old Richie Culver leaves his home in Hull, a village in the North of England, to pursue his then-girlfriend to London. From here begins his career as an artist, driven by love and without some art studies behind him.Culver began making art on the streets and then, unexpectedly, his work "Have you ever really loved anyone?", a collage with a cutout of Jesse Owens, was exhibited at the Tate Modern in London during a group show. Richie Culver is now 44 years old and exhibits his work all over the world, enjoying great success thanks mainly to his blunt and crude phrases written on canvas.

His rough poetics come from his past and the phrases are often auto-biographical. Richie Culver was born into a family working class, in a disillusioned environment that preponderantly influences his thoughts and consequently his art. His struggle with the class system and contemporary masculinity is evident from his sentences.His cynical phrases retain a dark humor and become universally understandable. With their simplicity and drawing from clichés, which the artist strongly struggles with, Culver's phrases are able to communicate with any person, from any background and social class.

Between irony and cynicism, Richie Culver takes a stand against technology and particularly the world of social media. Emblematic is the controversial work "Did U Cum Yet?", one of his classic spray-paintings on canvas, which immediately went viral on Instagram. In that the work itself is a critique of the inordinate use of social media, in which the artist compares the act of masturbation to the need to feed one's ego by posting one's art on Instagram, Culver decided to destroy the original work. He does, however, make a book that contains all the screenshots of comments in response to the piece, mostly critical ones.

Today Richie Culver is an eclectic artist. His practice ranges from painting, sculpture, photography and digital performance. Currently, his career is directed particularly toward music. His audio pieces become a continuation of his paintings, oscillating between music and poetry.

Courtesy Richie Culver