Simon Faithfull

Simon Faithfull
Simon Faithfull, June 2014
Born	1966 (age 50–51) Ipsden, England
Nationality	British
Known for	Drawing, video art, sculpture, performance lectures

Simon Faithfull (born 1966 in Ipsden, Oxfordshire) is an English artist based in Berlin and London. His work has been widely exhibited in both international solo and group exhibitions, including Musee des Beaux Arts (Calais), Fabrica (Brighton,) FRAC Basse Normandie (France), The British Film Institute Gallery, London; Haus am Waldsee, Berlin; CRAC Alsace, France, Stills, Edinburgh; and the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 as part of ArtSway’s New Forest Pavilion.

Faithfull grew up at Braziers Park, as the son of Major Robert Glynn Faithfull and half brother to singer Marianne Faithfull.

He was the first visual artist to receive an Arts Council England Fellowship to travel to Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey. The journey began in November 2004 and lasted for two months. During this journey, Faithfull made daily drawings on a PalmPilot recording the daily events and sights of a journey ever further south. As with other drawing projects, these sketches were then relayed back to the world via email. In this case 3,000 people around the world received a live drawn message from end of the world.

"The drawings are very restricted in their detail because of the tiny screen with its paltry number of pixels. But I like this discipline of making something meaningful with such reduced means, something akin to an economy of line."

Since 2000, Faithfull abandoned paper

"in favour of pure line (or at least pure pixel) as a means to allow the lines of observational sketches to float free of their ‘ground’."

He now makes his drawings using a bespoke iPhone app, Limbo.

Faithfull’s practice often involves elements of failure and anti-heroism. His works revolve around research and experiments, and during the course of the past few years he has become known for his Lecture Performances that will often accompany his exhibitions. He is cited as trying to measure the world in order to check whether it exists and whether, when absent, he also still exists.