Simon Birch (artist)

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Simon Birch
Birch in 2013
Born	(1975-10-21) 21 October 1975 Brighton, England, UK
Nationality	British
Field	Painting, film, sculpture, photography, installation art and performance art
Training	Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
Works	"Hope & Glory", "Laughing with a Mouth Full of Blood"

Simon Birch is a painter and multimedia artist of Armenian descent, born in Brighton in 1975 and resides in Hong Kong.^[1]^[2]

Biography

Birch's family moved around much as his parents pursued work, often in the countryside, before settling in the Midlands, the city of Leicester, in his mid-teens.

Birch left school early with little academic success, left home and entered straight into independent life working many odd jobs. He obsessively pursued an interest in urban dance music, DJing at club nights and rave parties around the UK eventually establishing his own regular club night, 'Head', which often featured the heavyweights of the DJ world such as Sasha, Carl Cox and Top Buzz. In the mid 90's, Birch left the UK permanently to travel, spending considerable time in Australia, before finally settling in Hong Kong in 1997. Continuing his involvement in dance music, Birch organised a number of hugely successful events under the brand Way Out East until government policy outlawed such events in Hong Kong. To supplement his income from such events, Birch worked construction on the Tsing Ma Bridge, all of which allowed him to pursue his passion for art production.

After being made redundant from his day job (ironically also due to government policy), Birch, more focused on art, began producing exhibitions of his work to try to generate income which met quickly with success. Within a few years of self-generated projects, he signed with a contemporary gallery, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery in Hong Kong. His figurative work led to many portrait commissions, both locally and abroad, though the bulk of his work explored explosive figures falling through space. This work was critically recognized and acknowledged with awards such as the prestigious Louis Vuitton and Sovereign Art Foundation awards. His paintings value increased steadily, as has the waiting list, allowing Birch to finance and organise more elaborate non-commercial multi-media art projects and large scale installations, notably 2006's group show,'Outside Context Problem', 2007's 'Azhanti High Lightning' (Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore), 2008's 'This Brutal House', and most significantly, 2010's 20,000 sq ft (1,900 m²) multiple media project, 'Hope and Glory' at the ArtisTree space in Taikoo Place.

Most recently Birch has accepted management from groundbreaking Asian arts organisation 'Future Industries', and his work has recently been shown at the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, London's Haunch of Venison, a solo installation in Beijing and a solo exhibition, 'Laughing With a Mouthful of Blood', a show of recent paintings at an unusual venue; the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences. For 2012 Birch will be involved in a number of projects in UK, Hong Kong, and America including a large scale touring installation project.

Hope & Glory: A Conceptual Circus by Simon Birch

Hope & Glory^[3]^[4] was a large scale collaborative project that filled the 20,000 sq ft (1,900 m²) ArtisTree exhibition space in Taikoo Place from April 8 – May 30, 2010. The project challenged established paradigms in art presentation and construction whilst taking the audience through a metaphorical world - a conceptual circus - conceived by Birch.

Just as the archetypal circus brought together spectacular “sideshows” from all over the world to create a multi-sensory allegory of foreign adventure, Birch brought together artists, designers, musicians, filmmakers, photographers, actors, gaming wizards, and architects, from Hong Kong and abroad. Each contributed their own particular vision to Hope and Glory’s conceptual world of spectacle and wonder. Among Birch’s collaborators were artist Stanley Wong, photographer Wing Shya, British music producer James Lavelle, filmmaker Eric Hu, designer Douglas Young, architect Paul Kember, actor Daniel Wu, and Beijing-based artist Cang Xin.

Birch’s monumental show explored a number of major themes that recur in the artist’s work: the idea of art as a spectacle; the fascination with circuses and fairgrounds, science fiction and mythologies; as well as a preoccupation with the traditions of craftsmanship and labour in art production.

Hope and Glory was deeply informed by the structure of the ‘hero myth’ that appears in different guises throughout history and across cultures, ranging from the Odyssey of ancient Greece to modern science fiction films like Star Wars and Blade Runner. The narrative that unfolds is a retelling - through film, sculpture, music, video, painting, gaming and live performance - of archetypal themes, such as the duality of human existence, the relationship between suffering and redemption, the journey from darkness into light, and the leap from adversity into transcendence.

One of Birch’s intentions in conceiving this monumental installation was the creation of an all-enveloping artistic space that echoes the function of the circus in traditional culture: offering within the frenetic urban environment a temporary place of other-worldly respite and the experience of a communal sense of wonder.

In 2011, Hope & Glory was moved to Beijing where it was exhibited at G Dot Art Space from April 29 to June 30, 2011.

Laughing with a Mouth Full of Blood

Birch's most recent exhibition, Laughing with a Mouth Full of Blood, an installation of paintings inside the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences was organised by his new venture into arts organisation, Future Industries. The use of the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences was part of Future Industries' goal to expand the conventional "white cube" gallery space and to propose new possibilities for showing art. Large figurative oil paintings by Birch filled the ground floor and annex of the museum, a listed colonial building which was erected in 1906 as Hong Kong's first bacteriological institute. The upper floor and basement of the museum contain displays of surgical instruments and other medial apparatuses, charting the progress of medical science from the late nineteenth century. Birch integrates his figurative art into this broader meta-narrative of scientific development to suggest that the human body can never be reduced to a pathological object or be made to fit a rigid conceptual grid.

Notable exhibitions

2011

HOPE & GLORY Beijing,^[5]^[6] G-Dot Art Space, Songzhuan District Beijing

Laughing with a Mouth Full of Blood, Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences

2010

Transformation, group show, Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art

Daydreaming, group show, Haunch of Venison, London

HOPE & GLORY: A Conceptual Circus by Simon Birch,^[7] ArtisTree, TaiKoo Place, Hong Kong

Re-Creation 2, group show, The Ogilvy Chocolate Factory, New York

2009

Art LA, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

ArtHK 09,^[8] 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong

Raw and Loved, AE District, Miami, USA

Small Wonder, solo exhibition at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong

2008

Looking for Antonio Mak, group exhibition (multiple media installation), Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong

Simon Birch: Out of the Darkness, solo installation at Louis Vuitton Gallery, Hong Kong

Arco 2008, The 27th International Contemporary Art Fair of Madrid, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Madrid, Spain

This Brutal House, multiple media installation solo project over 3 spaces, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery Central, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery Annex and 10 Chancery Lane Gallery Art Projects, Hong Kong

ArtHK 08, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong

Melbourne Art Fair, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

ShContemporary 08 Art Fair, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Shanghai, China

2007

Azhanti High Lightning, solo installation and multiple media project, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore

International Asian Antique and Art Fair Hong Kong, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong

ShContemporary 07 Art Fair, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Shanghai, China

2006

Curator and contributor, Outside Context Problem, group exhibition at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery Annex, Chain Wan, Hong Kong (participating artists: Can Xing, Huang Rue, Wing Shay, Li Wei, Anthony Lam, Stanley Wong a.k.a. anothermountainman, Tatsuyuki Tanaka).

The Armenian, solo exhibition in 2 spaces, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Central and 10 Chancery Lane Gallery Annex, Chai Wan, Hong Kong

Shanghai Art Fair, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Shanghai, China

2005

Curator and contributor, Box – A Hong Kong Exhibition, at Langham Place, Mong Kok, Hong Kong. 30 local artists involved.

The Amazing Adventures of the Monkey King, installation at Lane Crawford, International Finance Centre, Hong Kong

2004

Group exhibition at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong

Brighton Fringe Festival, UK; Pop! Group exhibition with Banksy, Jamie Hewlett, James Cauty and NY collective Faile, United Kingdom

The Art of Protecting Flat Surfaces, solo exhibition at The Old Parliament House Arts Centre, Singapore

Recent Works, solo exhibition at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong

Recent Works, solo exhibition at Gajah Gallery, Singapore

2003

93 Million, solo exhibition at Bark Modern Art Gallery, Hong Kong

Simon Birch, solo exhibition at Kee Club, Hong Kong

Creative Hong Kong, installation at Taikoo Place for the Swire Group, Hong Kong

2002

Raw and Loved, solo exhibition at One-Fifth, Hong Kong

Simon Birch, solo exhibition at the Conrad Hotel, Hong Kong

Selected works at Zee Stone Gallery, Hong Kong

2000

Simon Birch Photographs, solo photography exhibition at The Fringe Club, Hong Kong

1999

Simon Birch Paints, solo exhibition at the Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong

Awards

2007

Winner of the Louis Vuitton Asian Art Prize ^{[citation needed]}

2004

Winner of the Sovereign Prize Manfred Schoeni Award ^{[citation needed]}

References

External links

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