ART AND SELF

An exchange – Ian Bourn and Anthony Howell

The Double-Mirrored Self and Self-Included Watercolours

WEEKENDS THROUGH NOVEMBER FROM 10 AM – 8 PM

Saturday 27 November – 4 pm – the artists are both also writers and will each do a reading. All welcome.

Full details:https://the-room.org.uk/exhibitions-2/ Now see the archive link here https://the-room.org.uk/art-and-self/

Ian Bourn: “In 2-Mirror Self-Portrait, Version 5 ‘Grimoire’ (2016), I became preoccupied with the ‘hand trying to paint the hand painting itself’.  Its ‘book of spells’ title comes from the growing awareness of my ritualized actions, and refers to an older meaning of ‘art’ in which magic is performed with wand/pencil/brush.  The ‘artist’ both paints himself into the picture and paints himself out.  The end result is a black canvas, whose visual history lies buried under the layers of over-painting.

This exhibition, originally planned for two years ago, was suggested by Anthony Howell after he saw my nominated presentation at the Juda Foundation Award in 2019. This led to many an interesting conversation between us regarding reflexivity in art.” IAN BOURN – further images here: Bourn works ROOM’21opt

Anthony Howell: “In the early years of this century I went on several trips to lands where more sun was to be found than in the British Isles, including the Costa Verde and Fuerteventura in the Canaries. I became interested in contrasting the vertical pole of the parasol with the curve of the beach and the curves of the body, and this led me to see that my pencil was another vertical which might be used. This in turn prompted me into including my own hand, my own knees etc in the drawing as I sketched. As I did this, I was reminded of the paintings of John Bratby – of the artist painting a picture – which included the hands of the painter.” ANTHONY HOWELL – further images here: https://the-room.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/sketching-and-walking-away-reduced.pdf

The exhibition will include a display of the books, including those of J.W. Dunne – who wrote The Serial Universe – as well as Reflexivity in Art and Literature – from Don Quixote to Jean-Luc Godard – by Robert Stam. On another tack, describing the sense Bonnard’s presence in several of his paintings as a fugitive self, Tim Hyman sent me this essay a propos our show.

Timothy Hyman lecture on Bonnard

My lecture on pictures within pictures and infinite regression in art.