Simon Faithfull is British-born artist living and working in Berlin. His practice has been described as an attempt to understand and explore the planet as a sculptural object – to test its limits, to sense its processes and to report back on how it feels. His practice takes a variety of forms – ranging from video, to digital drawing, to installation work and to writing. Faithfull’s artworks often present a picture of humankind’s fragile position on a ball of rock spinning in space. Recent works have explored Homo sapien’s entangled interdependence with the trillion other species of ‘Earthling’ that we share this planet with – the beings, the gasses and the rocks that that we humans tend to call ‘nature’. Within his work Faithfull often travels to new contexts and learns from people, scientists, and technicians that help him bring back a personal vision from the ends of the world.
Recent projects include a collaboration with an ant that resulted in a permanent tattoo; a video-work shot in a watery modernist ruin off the coast of Florida; a journey across Europe and Africa tracing the 0º Greenwich Meridian; a live video-transmission from the deliberate sinking of a ship to create an artificial reef and a film featuring the artist walking around the perimeter of a rapidly shrinking island. Other older projects include a video-work recording the journey of a domestic chair as it is carried to the edge of space beneath a weather balloon, and a drawing project sending back live digital drawings from a two-month journey travelling to Antarctica on an ice-breaker.
Recent solo-exhibitions include: Galerie Polaris (Paris, 2023), Atchugarry Foundation Miami (USA, 2021), The Exchange, Penzance (UK, 2019), Kunstverein Sprinhornhof (Germany, 2016), Musee des Beaux Arts (Calais, 2015), and the FRAC Basse Normandie (France, 2014). Recent group-exhibitions include: CaixaForum (Madrid, 2023), EDF Foundation (Paris, 2022), Museum Ploschad Mira (Russia, 2021), KOGO Gallery (Estonia, 2020), Parafin (London, 2018), Maison Rouge (Paris, 2018), ACC Gwangju (South Korea, 2016), Turner Contemporary (UK, 2015), CCCB (Barcelona, 2015), Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2013). In 2019 the first iteration of Faithfull’s public artwork ‘The Erratics’ was unveiled in Cambridge University (UK), and in 2010 his largest permanent public artwork to date ‘Liverpool-to-Liverpool’ was unveiled at the centre of Liverpool (UK). Faithfull’s works feature in many collections around the world including in France in the Centre Pompidou and in the FRACs: Basse Normandie & Franche-Comté. In England Faithfull’s works are represented in the Government Art Collection & the Arts Council Collection amongst others
Simon Faithfull was born in Braziers Park – a utopian community in Ipsden, Oxfordshire, UK. He studied as Central St. Martins, London and then at the University of Reading. Faithfull is also a Professor of Fine Arty at The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London.