Tonyʼs Gallery is delighted to present “Smiling Since 1999″ – the first London solo exhibition by the legendary Spanish street artist PEZ. PEZ first started painting his iconic ʻsmiling fishʼ logo in the streets of Barcelona in 1999 and has since established a world wide reputation, with exhibitions in Europe, America and Asia. Now PEZ is bringing his happy, fun style to London. This exhibition will celebrate his work and bring some color and cheer to the streets of the capital. He currently lives and works in Bogota (Colombia) and so continuing this theme for his first solo show in London PEZ will create a fully working installation of a Colombian beach bar within Tony’s London gallery. Visitors to PEZ BAR will be able to play games, have fun and get involved with the art. It will offer an escape from the gray streets of the city with space to chill out listening to soothing beach tunes, and kick back and enjoy looking at PEZ’s works. The gallery space will be filled with his iconic fish and other smiling faces, alongside memorabilia of his previous works and pictures of his work from all over the world.This installation follows the journey of PEZʼs fish logo, originating in the city and progressing into his current work environment – the Colombian beach. PEZ started painting in the streets of Barcelona in 1999 and now the iconic fish logo has (enviably) found its way back to its natural habitat, the sea. Visitors to the gallery will be able to see this transition taking place as PEZ fish jump from the walls on the street outside the gallery into the Colombian beach inside. In fact, PEZ fish will be popping up in all kinds of unlikely places around Shoreditch over the next month. In addition to this PEZ will be painting the gallery walls and showing some new works including painted canvases and a limited edition print.
6th April – 6th May 2012
Private View: Thursday 5 April 6-9pm
Tony’s Gallery - 66 Sclater Street- London - E1 6HR
