About
Ian Douglass (b. Chicago, IL) is an artist and writer based in London. He works primarily in painting, drawing, and writing, sometimes spilling into sound (especially in his Velvet Theory Podcast), installation, and performance.
He sees his work as a series of essays: wildly diverse ideas are made material, drawing equally from critical research, conspiracy theory, occult arcana and fever dream. His recent work references yet razes the history of painting, from the subgenre of velvet painting to copper substrates, religious iconography, Vanitas, and abstraction. Across his practice, an essential collapsing of hierarchies between high and low art emerges, from French history painting to psychedelic sci-fi horror.
As a primary subject matter, Ian is most interested in belief: how it is performed, produced, corrupted and covers up its own cracks. Probing painting’s origins as shadow, he questions the reality of material and material of reality, mining the mysteries between form and void.
Email: fromstudiodouglass@gmail.com
Instagram: @studiodouglass
CV
Education
2021-2023
MA Painting (Distinction) • Royal College of Art • London, UK
2010-2015
BA History • Eugene Lang College the New School • New York City
BFA Industrial Design • Parsons the New School for Design • New York City
Selected Exhibitions
‘Echoes’ • July 2024 • Wonzimer x OHSH Projects • Peckham, London
‘Inbound Carousel’ • May 2024 • Galleria Objets • Brick Lane, London
‘Violent Bodies’ {Paintings and Performance} • Feb. 2024 • Femanifesto Collective at Ugly Duck • London, UK
‘Rites and Rituals’ • Feb. 2024 • Safehouse, Peckham • London, UK
‘Semantics of Love’ • May-June 2023 Danuser & Ramirez Gallery • Royal College of Art • London, UK
Chaiya Art Awards • April 2023 • London, UK
‘Good Oblivion’ • November 2022 • The Function Suite • London, UK
‘Third Floor’ • November 2022 • Royal College of Art, London, UK
‘Bordering Abstraction’ • April 2022 • Wonzimer Gallery Satellite Exhibition • London, UK
‘RAW’ • March 2022 • Soho Revue • London, UK
‘Salon of Imperfectionism’ • July 2021 • Wonzimer Gallery • Los Angeles, California
‘Beyond the Sea’ • July 2019 • Wonzimer Gallery • Los Angeles, California
‘Shrine as Graffiti’ • Residency & Site-specific Installations • October - December 2018 • Sanctuary Slimane, Marrakech, Morocco
‘Shrine of Pure Ideology and Illuminated Creatures’ March 2018 • SURVIVE! Garage • Yogyakarta, Indonesia
‘PAIN(T)KILLER’ • March 2017 • Sesama Gallery • Yogyakarta, Indonesia
‘Hallucinations from the Castle’s Prison’ • June-August 2015 • Castle Wil, Steinmann Stiftung • Bern, Switzerland (Solo + Residency)
From June through August 2015, the artist lived and worked in the now-defunct prison cells next to the Castle Wil (Schloss Wyl) in Bern Switzerland, producing paintings for exhibition in the castle’s tower, reflecting the history and unknowable past of the castle and surrounding landscape.