Trevor Guthrie
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Trevor Guthrie | |
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| Born | 1964 Dunfermline, Scotland |
| Nationality | Scottish / Canadian |
| Education | Victoria College of Art |
| Known for | Charcoal drawing |
Notable work | Self Portrait on the 67 (2004); Fox News (The War on Cheerleading) (2007); Hindenbunny (2010) |
| Movement | Contemporary art |
| Website | trevorguthrie |
Trevor Guthrie (born 1964) is a Scottish-born, Canada-raised contemporary artist based in Zürich, Switzerland. He is best known for monumental charcoal drawings that juxtapose cinematic realism with absurd or critical subject matter. His exhibitions include the Pera Museum’s And Now the Good News (Istanbul, 2022) and a 20-year retrospective at Villa Bührle, Zürich (2024).[1][2]
Early life and education
Guthrie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, in 1964, and grew up in Canada. He studied painting at the Victoria College of Art, graduating cum laude in 1989.[3]
Career
After relocating to Zürich in 1997, Guthrie painted for several years before shifting decisively to charcoal in 2003. His early breakthrough came with a series of large drawings for a Zürich bar event, one of which (Crocodile on the Bed) sold immediately.[4]
His 2011 solo show Another Sputnik Moment at Claire Oliver Gallery in New York was praised for the scale and intensity of its charcoal works.[5] Guthrie has since exhibited across Europe, Asia, and North America, and is represented in private and corporate collections internationally.[3]
Work
Guthrie’s practice engages themes of absurdity, politics, and cultural critique through large-scale charcoal drawings. His imagery frequently inserts wild animals or popular cultural symbols into mundane domestic settings, creating what he calls Unsinnig—deliberately irrational scenarios.[4]
He often employs ironic or manifesto-like titles, such as Landscape with the Trans-Continental Express vs. the Canon of Western Art—Manifested Here in the Form of a Tyrannical Crustacean. Works like Hindenbunny (Metaphor for early 21st-Century Art Market Hype) (2008) explicitly comment on productionism and the financial crisis.[4]
Although he briefly experimented with AI-generated prompts, Guthrie abandoned the medium, framing his hand-drawn works as a rejection of digital reproducibility and “factory” modes of art-making.[4]
Reception
Art critic Noah Becker has described Guthrie’s drawings as “the camera’s version of reality’s ghost,” situating them within contemporary traditions of drawing rather than photorealism.[6] Donald Kuspit has framed him within a “New Old Master” tendency, noting the incisiveness of his realism.[7]
The 2025 *Whitehot Magazine* feature emphasized Guthrie’s “anti-productionist” stance and his insistence on the handmade as a “small revolt against the machine.”[4]
Selected exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
- **2024** – Drawings 2004–2024, Villa Bührle, Zürich[2]
- **2011** – Another Sputnik Moment, Claire Oliver Gallery, New York[5]
- **2008** – The Finished Drawing, MV Art Projects, Zürich[8]
Group exhibitions (selection)
- **2022** – Pera Museum, Istanbul (And Now the Good News)[1]
- **2022** – Gian Enzo Sperone, Sent (Summer 2022)[9]
- **2023** – MART Rovereto; Gian Enzo Sperone (Summer 2023)[9]
Collections
The Burger Collection (Hong Kong / Zürich) holds Self Portrait on the 67 (2004). Guthrie’s Hindenbunny appeared at Christie’s South Kensington in 2011.[10]
Bibliography
- Becker, Noah. “Images and Ideas: Trevor Guthrie.” Whitehot Magazine, April 2016.[6]
- Kuspit, Donald. “Trevor Guthrie: Cynical Realist.” Whitehot Magazine.[7]
- “Letter From the Editor.” Whitehot Magazine, Oct 2011.[5]
- “In Conversation: Trevor Guthrie.” The Woolf, August 2018.[3]
- “Transcendence in the Monochrome.” Gainsayer, March 2019.[11]
- “Interview: Trevor Guthrie.” Whitehot Magazine, Dec 2007.[8]
- Wozniak, Stephen. “Trevor Guthrie’s Black Magic Provocations.” Whitehot Magazine, Aug 2025.[4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "And Now the Good News". Pera Museum. Retrieved 20 August 2025.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Retrospective: Drawings 2004–2024". Likeyou. 17 September 2024. Retrieved 20 August 2025.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "In Conversation: Trevor Guthrie". The Woolf. 31 August 2018. Retrieved 20 August 2025.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Wozniak, Stephen (18 August 2025). "Trevor Guthrie's Black Magic Provocations". Whitehot Magazine. Retrieved 20 August 2025.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Letter From the Editor". Whitehot Magazine. Retrieved 20 August 2025.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Becker, Noah (April 2016). "Images and Ideas: Trevor Guthrie". Whitehot Magazine. Retrieved 20 August 2025.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Kuspit, Donald. "Trevor Guthrie: Cynical Realist". Whitehot Magazine. Retrieved 20 August 2025.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Becker, Noah. "December 2007 Interview". Whitehot Magazine. Retrieved 20 August 2025.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Bio". Trevor Guthrie. Retrieved 20 August 2025.
- ↑ "Hindenbunny (Metaphor for early 21st Century Art Market Hype) – auction result". MutualArt. Retrieved 20 August 2025.
- ↑ "Transcendence in the Monochrome". Gainsayer. 6 March 2019. Retrieved 20 August 2025.
External links
This article "Trevor Guthrie" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles taken from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be accessed on Wikipedia's Draft Namespace.