Ian is a professional man, secure in his sexuality and proud of his body. He attended Camberwell College of Arts between 1996 and 9 where he learned to make things look pretty on a variety of surfaces including paper and fabric ... Hawking himself on a dirty alley named graphic design, he was picked up in the slick limousine of a famous company who, for no reason at all except to add the illusion of foul play, will remain nameless, where he stayed for three circles of the Earth’s orbit around our Sun (that firey, heartless life-giver), making many good things there including videos for songs by a band and little creatures and t-shirts and so on and so forth.
Ian’s ideas are crammed into his head like toys in a popular middle-class boy’s bedroom. Without money or a single friend, Ian had nowhere upon which to deposit many of the beautiful images that came to him. With no canvases within his price range and all the major galleries chasing him away with spears at the very suggestion that they afford him wall space he had to look elsewhere. Luckily, Ian’s eyes are keener than a trucker’s on special trucker speed and with those soppy old big blues of his he began to notice all over blank, cheerless surfaces, gaping and desolate waiting to be filled: a discarded fridge here, an abandoned gas fire there, rubbish bags and cardboard boxes, all with handy blank spaces, acting like fertilizer to ripen Ian’s mind.
Abandoning computers, Ian now grabs his pen hard and with vigor. He manipulates it in ways never before heard or seen on this little Earth. Your face will implode when faced with his fluids (from his pen). “Begone, airbrushing; farewell, anti-aliasing,” he chats, dashing his computer against the rocks “I am a man - a man, you hear? I need my hands to be dirty with inky residue I want to feel my body. Men, men alone, men together need not for effeminate graphic design. They need pictures of weird animals and stuff”. So he strides free in the world, a man standing alone in the world, naked and beautiful for all to see naked.
Clients include:
Tate Modern, ICA, Perrier, Microsoft, Paul Smith, Universal, MTV, E4 Music, Graniph, London Transport, Olgilvy, Pictoplasma, Carhartt, The Osbournes, Clarks Originals, Boots, Lemon Jelly, BT, Barbican and Shane Meadows.
Selected Exhibition:
Happy London - Paul Smith Space (JP), Pictopia - Haus der Kulturen der Welt (GE), Urban Superstar Show - Mondopop (IT), Heavy Pencil - ICA (UK), Anti Mascot Project - Melbourne Underground (AU), Santas Ghetto - POW (UK), Secret Blisters - Print Club (UK), Have A Nice Day - Iguapop Gallery (ES), Best Wishes Get Well Soon - Concrete Hermit (UK), Draw - Stolen Space (UK), Feel Good Session Two - J.A.R (HK), Charity By Numbers - Corey Helford Gallery (US), Behind The Scene - Ad Hoc Gallery (US), Characters “R” Us - CAPC musée d’Art contemporain de Bordeaux (FR), Really Shit - Ship of Fools (NL).
Quotes about the work
“Ian Stevenson is an unlikely eco-warrior but the London based artist has created a unique form of recycling. His latest project uses everyday discarded objects such as fridges, skips, and cardboard boxes as the canvases for a series of curious characters. Ian Stevenson’s dark wit and beautifully simplistic drawings have made him one of the most interesting and exciting illustrators working today.”- Current TV
“Visually striking, there’s a twisted sense of fun – along with what can only be described as a ridiculous sense of menace – in the work of Ian Stevenson collected here in Best Wishes Get Well Soon. Brilliant.” – Gavin Lucas, Creative Review.
“Ian Stevenson draws on walls, rubbish, floors, paper cups and anything else he can find. He draws familiar things, twisted and distorted beyond reasonable levels. His characters live in peril, the atmosphere is dark and unsettling. The colours are bright, but not in a cheery way. I don’t know why Ian draws like this, nobody asked him to. It feels like Ian’s drawn universe existed long before he did, he is reporting back the things he sees, so we don’t have to go there. Next time you see a paper cup, or a bin bag, think of the strange world beyond and get well soon” - Anthony Burrill, Best Wishes Get Well Soon.
“In harmony with consuming. This is just one of the advantages of the modern illustrator: he (or she) comes with a fashionable bag of personality. His hand is freer than his forebear’s. If he likes to draw weirdly-shaped hamburger-people. he is allowed, nay, encouraged to do so. Ian Stevenson and David Shrigley open the door on this style, which art historians probably won’t ever call the Knowingly Naive School. It’s prominence is part of a deeper trend in adverting, which is the movement from representation to expression.” - Gordon Comstock, Creative Review.
“Art has always been a tricky thing to define. What I like might be awful to you and in the same instance I may not even be able to give you any reasons why I like a particular artist/piece of art. Often it’s just a gut thing. A few years ago I spent an awful lot of time surfing the web in search of artists that I could connect. Straight away I fell in love. Ian Stevenson’s work is simple but incredibly effective.” - The 405.
“In times of a billion impressions a day, his work just seems to stick. Everyone is an artist these days, so it’s refreshing to see one amongst the millions that makes me go ‘wow’.” - Bitchslap.
“I have to say the first time I saw the drawing I wasn’t very sure of them (being so simple) but more I saw of them, more I thought how perfect they are actually.” - Mother London Advertising Agency
“And I like Ian Stevenson a lot. We happened to both do some artwork for a magazine called Bitchslap, and when I saw his stuff it was a revelation. He has his own style and that’s rare these days because many artists just copy each other.” - Skinny Gaviar, Wheel Me Out Interview.
“Your drawings are creepy and horribly freakish and show a warped mind that seriously needs to be examined by a psychologist. Whoever wrote the review for your work also needs their head examining and after that if they still think that your work is of a quality that other people should be subjected to I sugest that they see the work of my 3 year old niece who rivals your ‘expertise’ and sign her for a multi million pound deal that she obviously deserves!” - Number 1 Fan.
“You are an embarassingly bad “artist”. I am even wasting my time telling you. Grow up. Your kinda shit polutes the world. - Kristian Andersen
“Ian, my wife won’t let me put the ‘Lily Allen is a Twat’ poster up in the house. Should I divorce her?” - James Boynton
“Stevenson explores the brutal self conscious in a raw and inviting exhibition.” - IdN
“Who is Ian Stevenson?” - Andy (Twitter)
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