PEZ

PEZ is the professional name of Steven Perry, a British artist and illustrator closely associated with the visual culture of the UK rave movement. Born in Hackney and later based in Southend-on-Sea, he began working in graffiti in 1986, inspired by hip-hop and the book Subway Art. His name developed from his surname, Perry. From the late 1980s, club flyers became a principal outlet for his work, carrying his imagery far beyond the walls and surfaces of graffiti.

His move into rave design grew directly from his participation in the scene. After attending an early Biology party, he approached its organisers and offered to improve on the photocopied handbill being distributed outside. Commissions followed for promoters including Helter Skelter, World Dance and Raindance. Working to the rapid rhythm of successive events, he helped give rave a distinctive visual language: intensely coloured, surreal images that promised an experience beyond everyday surroundings.

PEZ’s imagery brought together science fiction, impossible spaces, bodies and mechanical forms, using collage, drawing and painting. He has described adapting photographs and combining them with influences from Salvador Dalí and M. C. Escher. Much of the work was produced by hand, even as digital image-making was becoming more widespread. His flyers were designed to arrest attention in the moment they were handed out, but their dense imagery also encouraged people to keep and display them. His significance lies in that meeting of commercial illustration and a culture he knew from the dance floor.

His original artwork featured prominently in The Rave Story at London’s Aquarium in 2016, an exhibition organised from within the scene by Billy Daniel Bunter and Uncle Dugs. In 2019 he collaborated with Coach, adapting his rave-flyer imagery and characteristic eye motifs into a campaign presented as advertising for an imaginary party. That later commission demonstrates how a visual language developed for underground dance events continued to circulate through fashion and popular culture.