Jamie Shovlin’s modern masters

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Rosalind Ormiston catches a show with a literary inspiration

The colourful front covers of a set of literature guides – the Fontana Modern Master Series – published in the 1970s and ’80s, has inspired Jamie Shovlin’s latest body of work, in ‘Jamie Shovlin: Various Arrangements’, curated by Tom Hunt, on display at the Haunch of Venison Gallery, London, until 26 May.

Jamie Shovlin is perhaps best known for his false-memory works such as the fictional life and diaries of a 13-year-old schoolgirl ‘Naomi V. Jelish’, 2004; and ‘Lustfaust’ 2006, the experimental noise band. For ‘Various Arrangements’ the starting point was a list of 17 unpublished book titles in the Fontana Modern Masters series. These were intended to follow 49 published books that had introduced famous thinkers, scientists and writers, such as Freud, Kafka, Proust and Russell, to a wide audience.

To promote the books, Fontana Modern Masters general editor, Frank Kermode, chose Op artist Oliver Bevan to create covers using abstract geometric shapes in bright colours; and for 15 years until the series was abandoned, six different design series were used: three created by Bevan and three by RCA graduate James Lowe. The remaining 17  planned titles remained unpublished and without cover designs.

In 2004 Shovlin produced a set of 49 watercolours related to the book series then abandoned it for other work. In 2011 he took it up again, and began a process of considering what the unpublished covers might have looked like. To do this he created an eight-point plan to work out the colour combinations of the 17 missing titles. One needs to concentrate to keep up with Shovlin’s logic and strategy but it is worth it; a light touch and soft humour comes through in the intensity of the system by which he allotted ‘points’ to the ‘Masters’ of the missing titles.

Using the original covers as a template, Shovlin invented a colour wheel system. Points were awarded on the basis of the number of years between a ‘Master’s’ death and year of first publishing and the number of pages in the book. Extra points were awarded if the ‘Master’ had won a Nobel prize. There were points for the length of  related online encyclpaedia entries for mentions of other books by the same 'Master' in  such entries' bibliographies, and so on. A grand total league table for each published ‘Master’ was compared with an unpublished ‘Master’ with the same points, and colour-matched from this methodology.

In the first room of the Haunch of Venison exhibition, Shovlin’s giant colour wheel painting explores, explains and translates this intricate colour system as applied to the new works on show. On the opposite wall, in a display of inside front pages, the colour referencing is applied to the published titles. Here, too, is a low plinth, which displays elements of the ‘laboratory’ room of Shovlin’s studio (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue), with piles of Fontana Master Series books; the painter’s overalls, some of the stencils, masking tapes, paint pots, balls of used rags, and vast numbers of notebooks.

Following this room, the light-filled gallery spaces exhibit the paintings where each canvas defines the colours Shovlin accorded to famous names, such as Mann, Steinbeck, and Fuller. The paint drips of the different layers of colour applied to the canvases remains purposefully evident in the side view of each work. The logical methodology of Shovlin’s approach to the design and colour form – for the watercolours and paintings – provides more to consider than the works alone. It is an intricate puzzle that can be deconstructed and must surely leave the viewer wanting to know more about the artist (and the Fontana series). 

Tom Hunt, curator of this exhibition, has laid out Shovlin’s work in a logical pattern of interpretation and creates a wonderful exhibition of Shovlin’s latest fiction. The catalogue (£20), possibly a future ‘collector’s item’, contains the ‘colour wheel’, preparatory works, photographs of works-in-process, illustrations of the paintings and watercolours, and includes three substantial texts, transcripts of Jamie Shovlin in conversation with writer Martin Holman.

Jamie Shovlin is decidedly the ‘dark horse’ of contemporary art; whilst many people in London are flocking to Tate Modern for contextual sheep and skulls, right now the most cerebral exhibition is at the Haunch of Venison. It makes you think.