Steven Shearer's ongoing picture album of male youths stops by Ikon in Birmingham, a city where his images' reference to heavy metal culture becomes entangled with some of the sources that inspired them. Don't miss tomorrow's special In Conversation event, a discussion between the artist, Lisa Milroy (whose work is being exhibited in the galleries as well), Director Jonathan Watkins and Curator Nigel Prince.
Steven Shearer, Larry 2005 (detail), oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist.
Shearer's practice, which encompasses photographic displays, drawings and paintings, lies somewhere between the anthropological study and the obsessive archival trawl. His soft pastel renderings and collage assemblages of amateur images culled from the internet transform the would-be tough image of male metalheads into a delicate, quietly evocative ephebic melancholia. The classic conte-crayon-like earthy, oversaturated palette he employs in many of these portraits don a kind of antique art-school life drawing model glow and expressionistic framework (the fluid lines of, say, Toulouse-Lautrec's backstage homages or Munch's anxious compositions might come to mind) to his anonymous, beautifully tressed characters, whose often averted gaze emphasises their objectification as well as their own absorbed self-possession.
The artist's parallel exploration of the slightly camouflaged paraphernalia of teenage rock subculture in other projects - reconstructing and presenting collections of sheds and garages where practices are held, unearthed fanzines already long lost in the attic - look for a record of a subculture's origins and presence within the surface of ordinary suburban life. Shearer's visual language revolves around the found but encompasses the highly personal; he often inserts images of himself among the figures in his documentary briefs. His compulsive interest in 1970s-based teenage phenomena (both heavy-metal and non) seems both frankly autobiographical and romantically inclined, partly generational partly timeless search of a sort of projected, endless youth. I can't help thinking of his scholarly image googling as a search for the repetitively unique within a collective, a kind of self-fetishisation in multiplicity.
The exhibition at Ikon will be the Canadian artist's first solo show in the UK, and it seems particularly appropriate it should be held in Birmingham, a city famous in heavy-metal circles for bands such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. A limited edition archival inkjet print, featuring images of 70's teen star Shaun Cassidy is available in an edition of 20 for £175. An oversized, wearable badge emblazoned with the words 'Swinging Lumpen' is also for sale for £8, in an edition of 500.
Lupe Nunez-Fernandez
In Conversation
Wednesday 30 May, 2.30-4pm
Places are free but should be reserved by contacting Ikon on +44 (0)121 248 0708.
STEVEN SHEARER
30 May - 15 July 2007
Second Floor Galleries
Ikon Gallery
1 Oozells Square,
Brindleyplace
Birmingham B1 2HS
T: +44 (0) 121 248 0708
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