The Self as a Stranger: Simon Lewty

Artist Simon Lewty is known for his large scale and intensely detailed works where the layering of text and image serve to create a dream-like reality. Narrative is rarely followed through to conclusion, yet we are compelled to immerse ourselves in Lewty's rich representation of body and landscape. Visually reminiscent of ancient documents and comparable to maps, Lewty's text-based works explore forgotten worlds of light and darkness, offering a reflective sense of history and exploring the inevitability of the passing of time. The writers whose words have been selected to accompany this comprehensive survey of Lewty's work provide an in-depth study of the artist, shedding light on his key ideas and working method. The book opens with a foreword from Ian Hunt and contributors from a variety of disciplines include Stuart Morgan, Paul Hills, Peter Larkin, Cathy Courtney and Susan Michie, as well as texts from Lewty himself, including memories from his childhood, through to more recent reflections on his life and art. Lewty's work has been exhibited widely and is included in collections at the Arts Council of Great Britain, Victoria and Albert Museum, to Miami Beach, USA, where he is represented in the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Visual and Concrete Poetry. The Self As a Stranger is published to coincide with a major exhibition at Art First in September, showing the comprehensive and highly original collection of this artist's work from over the past 50 years and pointing out the enduring importance of Simon Lewty's contribution to contemporary fine art. SELLING POINTS • The Self as a Stranger offers a detailed view of the extraordinary career and work of artist Simon Lewty, bringing together a collection of works from 1957 to the present. • British artist Lewty has been integrating word and image in his drawings and paintings for over 30 years. His work has a distinctive style, a combination of visual symbolism and calligraphy rooted in Medieval illumination and map-making traditions. • The artworks featured in The Self as Stranger are accompanied by critical writings on his work from a variety of contributors, providing insights and perspectives in keeping with the breadth of his career. • The Self as a Stranger is published to coincide with a major exhibition of the artist's at Art First, London in September 2010. AUTHORS Ian Hunt is a London based writer, curator and lecturer. He writes widely on contemporary art and is currently a lecturer in ine art at University College for the Creative Arts, Canterbury. Stuart Morgan was Britain's foremost writer on contemporary art throughout the 1980s and mid-1990s. He contributed to Artscribe, US magazines Art Forum and Arts Magazine and other major periodicals. Paul Hills has lectured at Warwick University, directed the History of Art programme in Venice, and been a visiting professor at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York; Villa I Tatti, The Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies; and the Royal College of Art. In 2003 he was appointed Andrew Mellon Visiting Professor at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Peter Larkin is the author of several volumes including Terrain Seed Scarcity (Salt Publishing, Cambridge, 2002), and three recent chapbooks from The Gig: Rings Resting the Circuit, Sprout Near Severing Close and What the Surfaces Enclave of Wang Wei. Cathy Courtney is a freelance writer and oral historian, Trustee of the archive of theatre designer Jocelyn Hebert and is a research professor at Wimbledon College of Art. Courtney is the author of several books, has written for numerous art and architecture journals and contributed towards publications such as Artscribe, Blueprint, The Independent, The Observer and The Times. Susan Michie is a practising artist based in Dorset. ILLUSTRATIONS 150 colour & b/w illustrations