Guy Hepner Gallery

Elmo Hood Live, Laugh, Leave Me Alone For Sale

Elmo Hood
Elmo Hood - Live, Laugh, Leave Me Alone, 2026, Mixed Media Playing Card on Wooden Backed Canvas | Signed

Live, Laugh, Leave Me Alone, 2026

Mixed Media Playing Card on Wooden Backed Canvas | Signed

12 x 16 Inches

About this work

Elmo Hood has emerged as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary street art, building a devoted following through works that balance irreverent humor with pointed social commentary. Operating at the intersection of pop culture and urban art traditions, Hood has cultivated a market presence that resonates particularly with collectors seeking artists who challenge conventional gallery expectations while maintaining strong visual accessibility. Live, Laugh, Leave Me Alone exemplifies Hood's signature approach to subverting familiar cultural touchstones. The work appropriates the ubiquitous domestic mantra beloved of interior décor catalogues and repurposes it as a statement of contemporary exhaustion and boundary-setting. Rendered in mixed media on a wooden backed canvas, the piece incorporates a playing card element that introduces themes of chance, gamesmanship, and the performative nature of daily life. The twelve by sixteen inch format creates an intimate viewing experience, inviting close inspection of Hood's layered technique while maintaining the punchy immediacy that defines the artist's practice. The juxtaposition of craft and concept demonstrates Hood's ability to communicate complex emotional states through deceptively simple visual language. There is a knowing wit at play here, a recognition that modern life demands both participation in and retreat from its relentless social expectations. The work speaks to a generation navigating the tension between connectivity and self-preservation. This signed original represents an opportunity to acquire a work that captures Hood at a moment of creative confidence and cultural relevance. For acquisition inquiries regarding this work by Elmo Hood, please contact Guy Hepner.

$5,160

Edition & Provenance

Year
2026
Medium
Mixed Media Playing Card on Wooden Backed Canvas | Signed

More from this series

About the Playing Cards Series

Elmo Hood's Playing Cards series is where his signature process began, and it remains the most collected body of work in his practice. Each piece starts with a found playing card, its printed color and imagery repurposed rather than covered, then built out with layered mixed media and mounted on wooden backed canvas.

The cards themselves carry the compositions. Kings and queens recur throughout, their existing linework absorbed into new characters and scenes. Hood works dark tones into the shading and outlines of each piece, giving the finished work a graphic, almost stencil-like edge that sits somewhere between pop art and street art.

The titles are part of the work. Lines like In The War Of Ego The Loser Always Wins and What Doesn't Kill Me read like aphorisms, pulling the series toward the same undercurrent of philosophy and self-examination that runs through Hood's practice more broadly. A recurring New York thread, seen in pieces like New York Is A Verb and New York Punches, reflects the city's pull on the artist and its recurring presence across this body of work.

Guy Hepner Gallery presents 15 works from the Playing Cards series, available through private sale. Each piece is signed by the artist. Complimentary valuations and current pricing are available on enquiry.

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Live, Laugh, Leave Me Alone

About Elmo Hood

Elmo Hood is a self-taught contemporary artist working at the intersection of pop art and mixed media. Born in 1989 in Southampton, England, he now lives and works in Brisbane, Australia.

Hood's career began in 2013 with a single collage made from two playing cards. The piece went viral, leading to a string of international exhibitions and a growing collector base that has followed his work ever since. Those early card pieces set the template for what would become his signature process: cutting, burning, and reassembling found materials to build emotionally charged compositions.

Today his work fuses pop art sensibility with layered mixed media technique. Playing cards remain central to his practice, their existing color and imagery repurposed into new palettes, while darker tones anchor the outlines and shading of each piece. Kings and queens recur throughout his output, alongside recurring nods to philosophy, religion, and the paranormal, giving the work a mythic, symbol-driven undercurrent beneath its pop surface.

Hood's work has been featured in British GQ, Forbes, Glamour, Wall Street International, and Made in Shoreditch, among other publications. He has exhibited across London, Paris, New York, Miami, Ibiza, Bahrain, and Munich, with pieces auctioned at the Houses of Parliament. His exhibition history includes solo shows such as Down the Rabbit Hole at Westbank Gallery, London, and House of Cards in Miami, alongside group exhibitions in New York and at the Bahrain Art Fair.

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