IAN EVERARD
Biography
Everard was born in the coastal town of St. Ives, Cornwall, U.K. He has a BA from Stourbridge College of Art, U.K., Graduate Certificate in Science Communication from UCSC and MFA from SFSU. He has exhibited nationally and internationally. His work is in public and private collections, including The Achenbach Foundation San Francisco, Crocker Museum Sacramento, Oakland Museum, Special Collections UCSC and the Lawrence B. Benenson Collection, Connecticut. He received a Rydell Fellowship and George Sugarman Award. He is represented by Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco and is preparing a solo exhibition at Jack Fischer in 2024. This year, he is included in group shows at Jack Fischer, in San Francisco, and Anima Mundi Gallery, in St. Ives, Cornwall, and AOAP, in London.
ianeverard.weebly.com
Project Description
The Disorganized Archive
During the lockdown of 2020, I began an exhaustive effort to paint pictures of and/or document, all the objects in my studio for The Disorganized Archive project. It is a work in progress; I am applying for funds to complete it. My studio contains hundreds of objects and paintings of objects found in my wanderings—books, photos, ephemera, detritus. Many are in peripheral view, as potential subject matter, informing my work as I paint. After an evacuation warning during the California wildfires, I had to imagine my studio going up in flames. What would I leave behind? I decided to leave the objects and save the paintings. Fortunately the studio did not burn, but what if it had? The Disorganized Archive project took on new meaning, as a record of potential loss. It would be a document of works, objects and ephemera spanning more than forty-five years. It was time to document and, indeed, organize this disorganized archive. I continued to plan and to paint. The objects I depict are mass produced but I work for many hours to faithfully copy each accident, crease, smudge or tear. The paintings are often unfinished but I consider them complete; juxtaposed with its subject, as visual rhetoric, the painting questions its source.
Since 2006, I’ve been exhibiting installations that represent my studio as site, including studio furniture and accumulated 'stuff'. This involved a shift from a phenomenological approach to subjects - things found in the world outside my studio - to a subjective response to the world inside my studio. Indeed, as the studio itself became subject, I came to see it as a frame, containing worlds. Within the studio is an accumulation of many things; the stuff that is the work, that might become the work, that informs the work. I have often referred to this as a 'disorganized archive.' I prefer it this way. It seems chaotic but I know where things are. I can lay my hands on source material and subject matter as it appears in my mind's eye and corresponds to my preoccupations. Often, my recent paintings are of books that concern past upheavals, but the juxtapositions convey my unease at their echoes in the present. With funds from the Tree of Life, I will be able to make an illustrated and annotated Disorganized Archive Catalog, for print and online publication. It will function as a map of the actual and imaginary space of the studio, including painted illustrations and photographs of paintings, potential subject matter and intriguing objects. There will be sections with my own writings, and also listings of books that I keep close at hand and refer to often (W.G. Sebald, Virginia Woolf, Charles Olson, etc.). To realize this project, funds will go toward purchase of a new computer (mine is over 10 years old), as well as professional photography, print and web design services. The Disorganized Archive catalog will be a stand-alone artwork and its digital equivalent will provide much insight into my work and what surrounds it.
Biography
Everard was born in the coastal town of St. Ives, Cornwall, U.K. He has a BA from Stourbridge College of Art, U.K., Graduate Certificate in Science Communication from UCSC and MFA from SFSU. He has exhibited nationally and internationally. His work is in public and private collections, including The Achenbach Foundation San Francisco, Crocker Museum Sacramento, Oakland Museum, Special Collections UCSC and the Lawrence B. Benenson Collection, Connecticut. He received a Rydell Fellowship and George Sugarman Award. He is represented by Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco and is preparing a solo exhibition at Jack Fischer in 2024. This year, he is included in group shows at Jack Fischer, in San Francisco, and Anima Mundi Gallery, in St. Ives, Cornwall, and AOAP, in London.
ianeverard.weebly.com
Project Description
The Disorganized Archive
During the lockdown of 2020, I began an exhaustive effort to paint pictures of and/or document, all the objects in my studio for The Disorganized Archive project. It is a work in progress; I am applying for funds to complete it. My studio contains hundreds of objects and paintings of objects found in my wanderings—books, photos, ephemera, detritus. Many are in peripheral view, as potential subject matter, informing my work as I paint. After an evacuation warning during the California wildfires, I had to imagine my studio going up in flames. What would I leave behind? I decided to leave the objects and save the paintings. Fortunately the studio did not burn, but what if it had? The Disorganized Archive project took on new meaning, as a record of potential loss. It would be a document of works, objects and ephemera spanning more than forty-five years. It was time to document and, indeed, organize this disorganized archive. I continued to plan and to paint. The objects I depict are mass produced but I work for many hours to faithfully copy each accident, crease, smudge or tear. The paintings are often unfinished but I consider them complete; juxtaposed with its subject, as visual rhetoric, the painting questions its source.
Since 2006, I’ve been exhibiting installations that represent my studio as site, including studio furniture and accumulated 'stuff'. This involved a shift from a phenomenological approach to subjects - things found in the world outside my studio - to a subjective response to the world inside my studio. Indeed, as the studio itself became subject, I came to see it as a frame, containing worlds. Within the studio is an accumulation of many things; the stuff that is the work, that might become the work, that informs the work. I have often referred to this as a 'disorganized archive.' I prefer it this way. It seems chaotic but I know where things are. I can lay my hands on source material and subject matter as it appears in my mind's eye and corresponds to my preoccupations. Often, my recent paintings are of books that concern past upheavals, but the juxtapositions convey my unease at their echoes in the present. With funds from the Tree of Life, I will be able to make an illustrated and annotated Disorganized Archive Catalog, for print and online publication. It will function as a map of the actual and imaginary space of the studio, including painted illustrations and photographs of paintings, potential subject matter and intriguing objects. There will be sections with my own writings, and also listings of books that I keep close at hand and refer to often (W.G. Sebald, Virginia Woolf, Charles Olson, etc.). To realize this project, funds will go toward purchase of a new computer (mine is over 10 years old), as well as professional photography, print and web design services. The Disorganized Archive catalog will be a stand-alone artwork and its digital equivalent will provide much insight into my work and what surrounds it.