Ivan Seal
{{Short description|English painter and sound artist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Ivan Seal
| image =
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1973|5|22|df=y}}
| birth_place = Stockport, Manchester, England
| education = Sheffield Hallam University, 1992{{endash}}1995
| occupation = Painter and Experimental Musician
| years_active = 2006–present
| known_for = Producing album covers for musician James Leyland Kirby
| website = {{URL|ivanseal.com}}
}}
Ivan Seal (born 22 May 1973) is an English painter and sound artist who specializes in surreal and abstract works centred around concepts of memory and the creation of imagined objects.{{Cite web |date=2011-06-02 |title=Artist of the week 141: Ivan Seal |url=http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jun/02/artist-ivan-seal |access-date=2022-10-17 |website=the Guardian |language=en}} He is best known for his collaborations with ambient musician James Leyland Kirby, also known as The Caretaker, creating artwork for the critically acclaimed albums: An Empty Bliss Beyond This World and the six part album series Everywhere at the End of Time, both of which examine themes of memory loss through the long-term mental decay brought about by dementia.{{Cite web |last=Tan |first=Declan |date=March 10, 2018 |title=The Noise In-Between: An Interview With Ivan Seal |url=https://thequietus.com/articles/24144-ivan-seal-interview |access-date=October 15, 2022 |website=The Quietus}}
Biography
= Early life =
Ivan Seal was born in Stockport, England on 22 May 1973. Little is known about Seal's early life aside from attending Sheffield Hallam University from 1992 to 1995, during which Seal began to experiment with creating art installations using ambient music as a medium.{{Cite web |title=Ivan Seal: White Noise - The Wire |url=https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/ivan-seal_white-noise |access-date=2022-10-17 |website=The Wire Magazine - Adventures In Modern Music |language=en}} During this period, Seal became close friends with another experimental musician from Stockport, James Leyland Kirby, who was creating music under the name "V/Vm".{{Cite web |title=Interview: James Kirby (The Caretaker) |url=https://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/james-kirby-caretaker |access-date=2022-10-17 |website=Tiny Mix Tapes |language=en}} At some point during 2004 following his studies, Seal moved to Berlin, Germany, where he currently resides.
= Career =
File:Ivan Seal - Nopossibiseallityarv leevin.jpg, as well as the names of his paintings.{{Cite web |last=Battaglia |first=Andy |date=14 November 2019 |title=In Abandoned 14th-Century Building in Poland, a Painting Show Where the Art Aims to Disappear |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/ivan-seal-caretaker-unsound-2019-13470/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210421083514/https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/ivan-seal-caretaker-unsound-2019-13470/ |archive-date=21 April 2021 |access-date=8 April 2021 |website=ARTnews}}]]
Seal's first known exhibition was as a part of the 2006 "Anonymous" exhibition at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany, in which he was one of 11 anonymous artists featured.{{Cite web |date=2006-10-31 |title=ANONYMOUS |url=https://www.schirn.de/en/exhibitions/2006/anonymous/ |access-date=2022-10-17 |website=SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT |language=en}} Through the years between 2006 and 2010, Seal's ambient music installations and paintings were featured within group and solo exhibitions throughout the Berlin art scene.{{Cite web |title=Carl Freedman Gallery |url=https://carlfreedman.com/ |access-date=2022-10-17 |website=Carl Freedman Gallery |language=en-US}}
Ivan Seal held his first major solo exhibition "personality disorders" at the Carl Freedman Gallery in London starting in May 2011. Following his initial exhibition, Seal returned to showcase his works at the Carl Freedman Gallery in London in 2013, 2015, and 2021. Alongside these semi-regular exhibitions, Seal's works have been exhibited in galleries across Europe{{Cite web|url=https://allouchebenias.com/exhibitions/i-wake-fresh-and-rested-most-mornings|title=I wake up fresh and rested most mornings, Allouche Benias Gallery|date=17 December 2022|publisher=Allouche Benias Gallery}} and the United States.
== Collaborations with James Leyland Kirby ==
In June 2011, James Leyland Kirby, under his moniker The Caretaker, released his breakthrough album An Empty Bliss Beyond This World, which featured Seal's 2010 work "happy in spite" as the album cover, giving both artists a large boost in popularity due to the critical acclaim for the album. Seal's art had been previously used by Kirby for Persistent Repetition of Phrases, released in 2008, but the usage of Seal's artwork for An Empty Bliss Beyond This World resulted in a continued collaborative relationship between the two artists. In 2012, Seal's artwork was once again used by Kirby as the album cover for the soundtrack to Grant Gee's film Patience (After Sebald).{{Cite web |title=The Caretaker - Patience (After Sebald) |url=https://brainwashed.com/vvm/releases/the_caretaker_patience_after_sebald.html |access-date=2022-10-17 |website=brainwashed.com}}
Ivan Seal and Kirby's relationship is most well known due to the album artwork Seal created for Everywhere at the End of Time, a six-part album series released throughout 2016 to 2019 which was meant to musically emulate the mental decay caused by dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20111012005010/http://www.carlfreedman.com/image-grid/37 Ivan Seal at Carl Freedman Gallery, London]
- [https://carlfreedman.com/artists/ivan-seal/ Ivan Seal at Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate]
- [http://www.monicadecardenas.com/milano/artists/ivan-seal/#works Ivan Seal at Monica de Cardenas Gallery, Milan]
- [https://thecaretaker.bandcamp.com The Caretaker with Ivan Seal]
- [https://www.frac-auvergne.fr/exposition/ivan-seal-the-caretaker-everywhere-an-empty-bliss/ Everywhere, an empty bliss] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210318094455/https://www.frac-auvergne.fr/exposition/ivan-seal-the-caretaker-everywhere-an-empty-bliss/ |date=18 March 2021 }}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seal, Ivan}}
Category:English album-cover and concert-poster artists
Category:20th-century English painters
Category:English male painters
Category:21st-century English painters
Category:British conceptual artists
Category:English contemporary artists
Category:Alumni of Sheffield Hallam University