His work divides critics, sells for thousands of pounds and has been likened to Jean-Michel Basquiat.
His mum is also known as the ‘Queen of Pop’.
Madonna’s son Rocco Ritchie was identified as the elusive artist Rhed by Page Six last month.
Rhed’s artist bio on London’s Tanya Baxter Contemporary gallery website says he’s a “young emerging artist whose cultural background is diverse and unconventional.”
“Having an eclectic cultural background, with a childhood spent between New York and London, his paintings exuded an engaging mixture of innocence and confidence,” it says.
“His time in New York was the beginning of his adventure into creating compositions on a large scale, expressing emotions and being motivated by the adrenaline of the city.”
The bio alludes to the influence of his famous folks: film director dad Guy Ritchie, and music mogul mum, Madonna.
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“As a teenager, he was fascinated by cinema, inspiring him to create storyboards, short films and fine art photographs,” it says.
“He has also always loved music and feels it is an integral element of his art. There is a strong rhythm in Rhed’s painting; the beat and pulse playfully control the canvas.”
Whilst the gallery promotes glowing reviews of Rhed’s work, calling him “an authentic, pure, and undiluted product of the 21st century” and, “a painter of the 21st century” who “speaks for the millennial generation” other critics aren’t as taken with Rhed’s work.
The Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones says the gallery “ought to be ashamed of cynically pushing this unready youngster on the market”.
“They compare him with the street artists Banksy and Basquiat but to be honest, the only street they remind me of is the King’s Road where this kind of bad art is sure to sell to posh fools,” he says.
“His paintings are clumsy adolescent efforts with no sign of originality or vigour.”
Rhed has shown work at the Chelsea-based art gallery twice since 2018, and sells work for up to five figures.
