Simon English British, b. 1959

Simon English (b. 1959 Berlin) lives and works in London. He emerged on the London Art scene in 1994 with an exhibition of paintings at the Saatchi Gallery as part of Young British Art III. He has become best known for his large and small-scale works on paper, often described as painted drawings and referred to as “diaries of the subconscious.”

English’s prolific practice is primarily drawing based. Using ink, pen, graphite and watercolour, he pairs, sequences and arranges these drawings in grids often comprising more than 100 works on a single wall. This regular and rational arrangement gives order to what is an overwhelming, changing, seemingly diaristic, kaleidoscope on the artist’s psyche. Gay culture, pop music, love, loss and recovery are key thematic threads in English’s work though spontaneity and action remain, and a giving over of himself to the blank page.

English has created a range of graphic languages, from intricate line drawings of imagined botanicals, to anamorphic cartoon-like people, creatures and buildings that mutate into fantastic, sensual or homoerotic entities. Detail and clarity is weighed against other passages in English’s work that are loosely drawn and roughly painted, where colour is washed and gesturally dripped over large areas of paper. Writing infiltrates much of English’s work, as interior monologues, doodles from phone conversations, confessions, snippets from overheard conversations, lyrics from songs on the radio, and incidental soundbites from popular culture. By the compulsive act of making, English confronts and works through profound personal experience.

His recent solo exhibition at Transpalette Centre D’Art Contemporain Bourges in 2020 and Diehl, Berlin in 2021 incorporated drawings, sculptures and works on canvas.

Simon English has exhibited internationally at The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, Musee D’Art Contemporaine de Val de Marne (MAC VAL), Paris, Arken Museum of Modern Art, Ishoj, The Aldrich Museum, Connecticut, Sammlung Essl, Vienna, Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg, Kunsthaus Zurich, LAM Lille, Rohkunstbau XXIII, Lieberose, Paisley Museum and Art Galleries, The New Art Gallery, Walsall, Tate Britain, London, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, Galerie Delacroix, French Institute, Tangiers, Peer, London, and Galerie du Jour Agnes B, Paris, FAB, Paris, Transpalette Centre D’Art Contemporain, Bourges.