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Bill Howe – Personal Details
1957 Born in West
Hartlepool, County Durham, England
1977- 80 University of
Newcastle upon Tyne, (Philosophy degree)
1980 Moved to Leeds, West
Yorkshire, England
1994 Founder member of the
Surrealist group in Leeds, together with Kenneth Cox and
Sarah Metcalf
1995 Started to draw
Works Previously Exhibited:
‘Curiouser & Curiouser’ –
Collective exhibition of works since 1967, by Surrealists
from Great Britain (Hourglass, Paris 1995)
‘Sacrilege’ (the magical
against the sacred) – Collective exhibition of works by
Surrealists from the Czech and Slovak republics, France,
Great Britain, Sweden and the USA (Salmov Palace, Prague,
1999)
‘Eveil paradoxal’ (Biennale
De Conches 2000) – Collective exhibition of works by
Surrealists from France, the Czech and Slovak Republics,
Great Britain, the USA etc. (Conches, Normandy, 2000)
‘To Je Neprelozitelný’ -
Solo exhibition. (Studio Pamet, Prague 2001)
‘Sfera Snu’ – Collective
exhibition presented by the Czech and Slovak group of
Surrealists. (Hrad Sovinec, Czech Republic, 2001)
‘The Persistence of Memory’ (Homage
to Robert Desnos) – Collective exhibition (Památník Terezín,
Czech Republic, 2002) Note: All the works exhibited were
destroyed by flood damage during the severe floods which
devastated large areas of the Czech Republic in August 2002
Works have also appeared in the
following surrealist publications:
Analogon (Prague)
S.U.R.R. (Paris)
Stora Saltet (Stockholm)
Salamandra (Madrid)
Manticore (Leeds)
Ingredients for the Works on
Display:
Paper
Childrens Water-Colour paintbox
Technical Drawing Pens (0.1 and 0.5)
Time |
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“Where Did All These Pictures Come
From?”
In early 1995, intrigued by the results I
had seen Kenneth Cox and Sarah Metcalf obtain by drawing
over their own photographs; and, inspired by the work of
Martin Stejskal, (specifically, the video of the
documentary, “Backwards to Infinity” - (The Dynamic of
Changes in the Work of Martin Stejskal); I began to
experiment myself; by drawing in ink, firstly over a black
and white photographic print, and then using enlarged colour
photocopies of sepia photographs. The resulting
‘contourages’ appeared in ‘Black Lamplight, No.1.’
Excited by the possibilities for
unearthing many interpretations of a single image, I
distributed colour photocopies of an ‘abstract’ sepia
photograph to my colleagues in the Leeds Surrealist Group,
and our close friend and collaborator, Peter Overton. This
was the beginning of the first cycle of our game of ‘Image
Exchange’, begun in early 1995. Each subsequent cycle of the
game has been initiated by an image provided by a different
individual, until all the participants have now taken a
turn. This game has yielded a startling sequence of images,
and is still in the process of compilation. For me, it also
served as one of the catalysts for a personal exploration of
the relationship between imagination and the ‘objective’
surface.
Having been invited to take part in the
exhibition, Curiouser & Curiouser: les surrealistes et
leurs amis en Grande-Bretagne depuis 1967, which was to
open at the Hourglass gallery in Paris on April 13th.
1995, I experimented with drawing in ink, directly onto
discarded, out-of-focus colour photographic prints. The
resulting interpreted images: ‘Foetal Dreaming’ and ‘The
Gestation of Stones’ were shown as part of the Leeds Group’s
collection, the latter having been completed and framed the
night before flying to Paris. The reception given to ‘Foetal
Dreaming’, in particular, by people attending the opening of
the exhibition both shocked and surprised me.
Filled with enthusiasm upon returning
from Paris, I bought a couple of sketch books and a child’s
painting set, and began to explore the use of abstract
surfaces, obtained by wetting a sheet of paper, applying a
wash of water-colour and allowing to dry, as a basis for
future drawings.
The ink is applied directly, without
prior pencil lines, simply delineating shapes formed by the
drying colours. These shapes are then filled-in, almost as
if I am engaged in producing a photographic print, applying
the grain of the picture by hand. The drawings also have,
for me, a temporal element, since the images which my
imagination uncovers in the abstract surface are always in a
state of constant flux, so it is the process of delineation
which arrests this constant metamorphosis, by fixing the
images onto the paper.
There is a personal narrative inherent in
many of the pictures. Sometimes this narrative is buried and
only becomes apparent long after the drawing has been
completed, when I am struck by a recollection of mood that
the images may conjure up, or am able to make connections
between past events and the period over which the surface
was worked on. Alternatively, there are times when a
narrative develops along with the picture, as I slowly
connect different and previously unconnected areas of a
surface. Again, the temporal element, the length of time it
takes to complete a picture, has a direct effect upon the
apprehension of any narrative.
The last time I remember drawing with any
regularity was, until very recently, as a fourteen year old
schoolboy, immediately before I became overwhelmed by the
worlds to be explored between the covers of books, and so
allowed myself to lose the skill of draughtsmanship that had
come with practice. Although envious of the abilities of
others, who can capture an image from their imagination on
paper, I am too lazy to re-learn skills that I have long ago
lost. More often than not, any activity involving collective
drawing still leaves me dissatisfied with my contribution to
the finished piece. It has been a very long time since I
have felt driven to paint, or draw. I find myself surprised
therefore, by a sudden outpouring of pictures.
While I would acknowledge that there may
have been both a technical, and stylistic development from
one picture to the next, and that there are references or
connections between one drawing and another, I would still
identify my primary motivation as a desire ‘to see what
happens next’. Like a child turning over rocks to see what
crawls underneath, it is this sense of curiosity which
drives me to spend days ‘uncovering’ a single drawing. The
need to discover how my imagination will subjectively
interpret the objective but abstract surface which I have
manufactured for the purpose.
Occasionally this desire becomes
obsessional; as the images delight, disappoint, mystify and
amuse by turns. I have sometimes felt as if I am opening a
window onto the world, and that while the view presented
from that window may change as it is opened and closed, it
is the same world, filled with meaning and mystery, upon
which the window opens, again and again
Bill Howe - September 1996. |
