The figurative drawings and mixed media tableaux of Simon English are known for their presentation of a heady accumulation of motifs: references to high art and literature, through to popular culture, autobiographical detail, sexual fancy and childhood fantasy all collide in works that combine the use of oil, ink, pencil, collage and crayon to invigorating effect. In previous bodies of work, English has nodded in the direction of DH Lawrence, David Beckham, Wayne Rooney (depicted in the nude), El Greco, Degas, Henry Moore, Julie Christie, CS Lewis and Eadweard Muybridge, to name only a few. (While his references and influences are eclectic, a predilection for Victoriana is detectable - something that is also discernible in the aesthetic of other contemporary British graphic artists such as Adam Dant - and this carries over into his working methods; the impulse to collect and display his 'findings'.)
Often, English presents his drawings and miscellaneous fragments (of text and image) as delicately arranged collages in frames behind glass, thus imbuing his works with a sense of formality and order that belies his more general strategy of 'piling up', the latter borne of a refusal to filter content to any great degree, so as not to arrest the flow of production. And a consequence of this is that very often the result can approach a condition of indecipherability, appearing almost wilfully opaque, while the concatenation or recurrence of visual and textual motifs, literary references and formal devices between works, and often across periods of his work, calls for a peculiar mode of attention on the part of the viewer, a curiously delightful frustration with English's project that is rooted in the (perhaps mistaken) suspicion that something is there to be untangled.
English's current show at Galerie du Jour - agnès b is his first solo show in Paris, and according to the press release 'there is a sense in the new work that he is packing his proverbial suitcase and moving to France for good while bringing little bits of England with him'. More likely, he is bringing into the fold the idiosyncrasies of an Englishman's take on French culture, as witnessed by the odd mix of famous French names that make an appearance in the new body of work: Marie-Antoinette, Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, Jean Genet and Zinedine Zidane.
Bill Roberts
Simon English
Until 12 December
Galerie du Jour - agnès b
44, Rue Quincampoix
75004 Paris, France
T +33 1 44 54 55 90
www.galeriedujour.com
Bill Roberts is a writer based in London, and a PhD candidate at the Courtauld Institute of Art.
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