Gareth Halliday's unorthodox career has taken an intriguing path since he graduated from the University of Northampton in 2000 with a degree in Visual Arts. After losing faith in the commercial art community the artist removed his work from the public eye and began working as a full-time postman, dabbling with the idea of developing personal projects on the side. It wasn't until 2009 and years of reoccurring nightmares of arriving at his own exhibition to find nothing but one, lonely second-class postage stamp on display that Halliday decided to pursue creating art again.
The reclusive artist's current work is highly considered, ridiculously ironic and hugely entertaining when viewed amidst a modern setting of mass-produced advertising and promotional campaigns. With the combination of appreciating urban art in and around London and his affiliation with ideas that combine both the satirical and derivative, alongside years of collecting vintage magazines, postcards and discarded papers Halliday rediscovered his passion for collage. The intricate mixed-media pieces fuse old with new, high culture with low culture, and reference a unique freedom of expression and DIY ethic associated with Dada and punk.
"My work tries to capture and handle the mediated depictions of reality that are thrown at us from the mass media. Through the process of collecting and reassembling found and forgotten images I hope to create new compositions which are often subjective, as my own interpretations of the world around me. "
