Since November 2022, an eclectic group have been gathering regularly at Brian Eno's studio. From theatre to comedy, art to faith, economics to philanthropy, this growing cross-section of cultural participants have been collaborating around the themes of race and class inequality, climate and democracy. The name of this group is Hard Art.
Ian Bruce was invited to depict the many attendees at these Hard Art sessions. He used a simple exercise of pairing people up and asking them to draw each other in pen without looking at the paper - a technique known as 'blind contour drawing'. Using crayons, Bruce then coloured in each linear abstraction, pulling whatever likeness the meandering facial features would allow.
The drawers and sitters include Brian Eno, Es Devlin, Jeremy Deller, Love Ssega, Cornelia Parker, Gavin Turk, Louis VI, Olivia Douglass and Fred Again, among many others.
“A clever idea in the hands of a multi-talented artist. Fascinating stuff!” - Brian Eno