Philip Absolon (born 24 November 1960) is a British artist and a founder member of the Stuckists art group,Milner, Frank, ed. ''The Stuckists Punk Victorian'', p. 50,

National Museums Liverpool National Museums Liverpool, formerly National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, comprises several museums and art galleries in and around Liverpool in Merseyside, England. All the museums and galleries in the group have free admission. The mu ...

2004, . Pages 6–30,

Charles Thomson Charles Thomson (November 29, 1729 – August 16, 1824) was an Irish-born Founding Father of the United States and secretary of the Continental Congress (1774–1789) throughout its existence. As secretary, Thomson prepared the Journals of the ...

's essay, "A Stuckist on Stuckism", can be found online a
stuckism.com
exhibiting in the group shows, including ''

The Stuckists Punk Victorian ''The Stuckists Punk Victorian'' was the first national gallery exhibition of Stuckist art.Moss, Richard"Stuckist's Punk Victorian gatecrashes Walker's Biennial Culture24, 17 September 2004. Retrieved 3 December 2009. It was held at the Walker A ...

'' at the

Walker Art Gallery The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group. History The Walker Art Gallery's collection dates from 1819 ...

in 2004,"The Stuckists Punk Victorian"
,

. Retrieved 6 April 2008. and taking part in Stuckist demonstrations against the

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...

."Philip Absolon: Introduction"
stuckism.com. Retrieved 7 April 2008. He has had long-term

unemployment Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is the proportion of people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work du ...

problems, depicted in his work with imagery of skeletons; his other main subject is cats, which he studies and depicts in motion.

Life and career

Philip Absolon was born in

Erith Erith () is an area in south-east London, England, east of Charing Cross. Before the creation of Greater London in 1965, it was in the historical county of Kent. Since 1965 it has formed part of the London Borough of Bexley. It lies north ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, and is the great-great-grandson of the Victorian watercolourist John Absolon (1815–1895). He attended Rede School,

Strood Strood is a town in the unitary authority of Medway in Kent, South East England. Strood forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Kent, Chatham, Rochester, Kent, Rochester, Gillingham, Kent, Gillingham and Rainham, Kent, Rainham. It ...

, and Educational Special Unit, Chatham (he is dyslexic). 1977–79, he was at the Foundation Art course, Medway College of Art and Design, along with future

Stuckist Stuckism () is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson (artist), Charles Thomson to promote Figurative art, figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art.Billy Childish Billy Childish (born Steven John Hamper; 1 December 1959) is an English painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer, and guitarist. Since the late 1970s, Childish has been prolific in creating music, writing, and visual art. He has ...

and

Bill Lewis William Lewis (born 1 August 1953) is an England, English artist, story-teller, poet and mythographer.Milner, Frank, ed. ''The Stuckists Punk Victorian'', p. 86, National Museums Liverpool 2004, . Pages 6–30, Charles Thomson (artist), Char ...

, who in 1979 formed

The Medway Poets The Medway Poets were founded in Medway, Kent, in 1979. They were an English punk based poetry performance group and later formed the core of the first Stuckists Art Group. The members were Miriam Carney, Billy Childish, Robert Earl, Bill Lewi ...

performance group with

and three others.Evans, Katherine, ed. ''The Stuckists'', p. 6, Victoria Press 2000, This group—with which Absolon read, although he was not a formal member— was the core of the Stuckism art group founded in 1999.Milner, p. 8

1979–82, he did a Diploma course at Epsom College of Art, where his paintings were thrown in a skip on the orders of the Principal. 1982–93 was spent either unemployed or in job training schemes for computer or office work. In 1984, his application for the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

was rejected, and so in 1987 was his application for the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

, to which he submitted pictures of cats. 1993–94, he was on a Fine Art Access course at

Maidstone College of Art The Kent Institute of Art & Design (KIAD, often ) was an art school based across three campuses in the county of Kent, in the United Kingdom. It was formed by the amalgamation of three independent colleges: Canterbury College of Art, Maidstone Co ...

, then accepted for a part-time degree, which financial constraints made him unable to accept; he was then awarded a grant for a full-time course, but his application was rejected. In 1999, he was accepted for an

NVQ National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) are practical work-based awards in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland that are achieved through training and assessment. The regulatory framework supporting NVQs was withdrawn in 2015 and replaced by th ...

in horse care, which he could not finish as he had to undertake a mandatory Government Project Work placement. Childish provided a source of support during Absolon's difficult times. In 1999, he was one of the founder members of the Stuckists art group, launched by Thomson and Childish; he has regularly exhibited in Stuckist shows, and also participated in most of the group's demonstrations against the

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...

. 2003–04, he was Artist-in-Residence at the Rochester Adult Education Centre, Kent. In 2004, he was one of the fourteen "founder and featured" artists in ''

'' held at the

for the

Liverpool Biennial Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom. Since its launch in 1998, Liverpool Biennial has commissioned over 380 new artworks and presented work by over 530 artists from around the world. ...

John Davies, a Liverpool

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

vicar A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English p ...

chose Absolon's ''Job Club'' as his picture of the month in February 2005, saying, "Of all the striking paintings in ''The Stuckists: Punk Victorian'' exhibition ... Philip Absolon's hit me hardest. I get the impression a lot of Stuckists are well used to life on society's fringes, on the receiving end of welfare-to-work policies which just don't work for many. Absolon's pictures – many in this style and on this theme – seem born out of the awful experience of sitting in places like Job Clubs and feeling, well, skeletal, living dead." In July 2006, he was selected by Matt Price for the

Saatchi Gallery The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the ...

''Your Gallery: Critic's Choice''.Price, Matt
"Your gallery: Critic's choice by Matt Price

, 29 July 2006. Retrieved 7 April 2008. Price said: Absolon was one of the ten "leading Stuckists" in the Go West exhibition at Spectrum London gallery in October 2006. He travels Europe by train in order to visit art museums and palaces. He has a strong interest in the German Hohenzollern Empire (1871–1918), and likes The Arts Club in

Mayfair Mayfair is an area of Westminster, London, England, in the City of Westminster. It is in Central London and part of the West End. It is between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane and one of the most expensive districts ...

, London. He lives in a cottage in

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

, England."Philip Absolon: Text"
stuckism.com. Retrieved 7 April 2008.

Art

Absolon has drawn regularly since he was sixteen, and still attends courses on sculpture, life drawing and painting. He always carries a sketch book with him, drawing, for example, customers in cafés.Evans, p. 33 He studies cats in movement and draws them. Cats and skeletons are the main subjects in his work, which can be compared to

Outsider Art Outsider art is Fine art, art made by Autodidacticism, self-taught individuals who are untrained and untutored in the traditional arts with typically little or no contact with the Convention (norm), conventions of the art worlds. The term ''ou ...

, but has much greater depth.Moss, Richard
"Stuckist's Punk Victorian Gatecrashes Walker's Biennial"
Culture24, 17 September 2004. Retrieved 24 November 2009. His working method is to enlarge the original drawing on a photocopier and then trace it onto the canvas with dressmaker's tracing paper. He usually paints from 8 to 10 at night. One of his paintings may take up to a month to complete. He described the origin of his painting, ''Job Club'':

Gallery

Image:Philip Absolon. Breakdown.jpg, ''Breakdown'' Image:Philip Absolon. Fit for Work.jpg, ''Fit for Work'' Image:Philip Absolon. See No Evil.jpg, ''See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil'' Image:Philip Absolon. Turner Prize.jpg, ''Turner Prize'' Image:Philip Absolon. Cassie Thinking About Cubism.jpg, ''Cassie Thinking About Cubism'' Image:Philip Absolon. Cat Cleaning and Dead Mouse.jpg, ''Cat Cleaning and Dead Mouse'' Image:Philip Absolon. Cat Cleaning.jpg, ''Cat Cleaning'' Image:Philip Absolon. College Canteen.jpg, ''College Canteen''

References

External links

Absolon on the Stuckism web site

Absolon family site

{{DEFAULTSORT:Absolon, Philip 1960 births Living people 20th-century English painters 20th-century English male artists English male painters 21st-century English painters 21st-century English male artists Alumni of the University for the Creative Arts British artists with disabilities British modern painters English contemporary artists People from Erith People with dyslexia Stuckism

Life and career

Art

Gallery

See also

References

External links