King Overman

British, born 1974.

King Overman makes life-size portraits of figures who shape and inhabit modern mythology.  

His flagship series Hardwood Army is an ever-growing collection of life-size basketball portraits. Begun in 2021 and now standing at over 45 pieces, selected works have been exhibited at Brooklyn Museum in New York, and held by collectors including Spike Lee and NBA Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins.  Outside of this arena, he was commissioned in 2022 by the Masters in Augusta to create a life-size portrait of golfing legend Jack Nicklaus.

Overman came to art in 2021, after serious illness ended a twenty-year career in electronic music. The visual language that followed was not arrived at by aesthetic choice alone- the simplified forms and color blocks are also a practical adaptation, allowing the artist to work at very large scales with limited energy levels. The constraints are inseparable from the output. The name King Overman is an alias to differentiate his visual art from his prior musical output. 

Working across painting and cut-out sculptures, he's heavily influenced by classical portraiture, fashion editorial photography and the vivid palettes of street art.  His first years in art are documented in his monograph Ballers (2022).

King Overman lives and works in Manchester, UK.