After a quick glance around for the famous grill, which glints slightly brighter in real life, Goldie was easy to spot. The DJ, known for his drum'n'bass records, occasional acting roles and, more recently, his classical conducting skills, threw his arms around visitors to the Maverik Showroom in east London, calling various people legends and grinning widely.
It was a different man to the one in his painting Fuck Off, a self-portrait, in which the artist gives the viewer a firm two-fingered salute and a sneer while holding an aerosol can. The work is the first on display in The Kids Are All Riot, Goldie's second solo show of recent work, which, he says, is "a prophecy for the Asbo generation written with spray paint and attitude". Fuck Off sets the tone for what follows: an aggressively trendy exploration of urban youth.
Many of Goldie's colourful canvases repeat the same images – young people, decay, conflict – in series, each with slightly different layers of materials, colours or added detail. The artworks scream vibrant knowingness. This Joke Isn't Funny Anymore has a hanged clown; No Peaceful Solution has the slogan "War Mart: Always High Prices" written across a picture of a defiant girl wearing a keffiyeh scarf. The series Happy Shopper (Don't Forget the Oil) depicts a girl in a headscarf holding a huge rifle, a shopping list scrawled behind her. A large triptych, I Predict a Riot, bears that phrase above a self-portrait and a stencil of a distant city, with swoops of spattered red and orange paint.
Like the materials and techniques he uses – ranging from a blowtorch to charcoal – Goldie's political message is laboured, perhaps verging on redundant. His 2007 work featured naked women on canvases styled as inverted Life magazine covers. Now the celebrity, who made his name in street art in the West Midlands when he was just 18, wants to up his social-comment stakes while still keeping it cool. Despite its focus on outsiders and society's failures, this is art you can imagine seeing in a well-to-do warehouse apartment, where the attempt at satire would inevitably come off as bland. Toilet doors with phrases in cut-out letters (two series, Two of a Kind, Male and Female) and the fake property sale signs (SOLD down the river…, POSH GAFF FOR SALE) are funny, but given the gold plaques that litter the exhibition with proudly displayed prices, the emphasis on their sale value constrains any social statement.
All the works are thoughtfully composed, even if they are cliched, and the street-art style portraiture comes off with surprising depth. The blurry fantasy of a pink carousel next to a girl holding a candyfloss stick and a knife in Fairground Attraction envisions a beautiful world that has an apocalyptic core.
The occasional set pieces add a sense of humour – there are customised empty All Gold chocolate boxes, and an arcade machine with "riot" daubed in graffiti in Riot Against the Machine. Texas Chainsaw Manicure, a painting on a wooden crate of a woman gleefully holding a chainsaw, has a plastic, blood-spattered chainsaw suspended above it. Also exhibited are blown-up flyers for festivals and musicians such as Pete Tong and Faithless, which bring you back to Goldie's world of mainstream fame.
Signed, limited-edition prints, photographs, and, of course, the paintings are all sponsored by a gold spray-paint company and a sports brand. Goldie may believe he is pushing boundaries, but his urban world suits the corporate world well – it is no wonder he's smiling.
